Repo! The Genetic Opera is a goth rock opera. If that isn’t enough to make you run out and get it, you may not like this one.

Set in the year 2056, organ failures have become an epidemic. Enter GeneCo, a biotech company, to save the day with organ transplants for those that can pay. Repossession of organs becomes legal and if you fall behind on your payments, a repo man will come to repossess your organs. Organs replacements become a fashion statement and people become increasingly addicted to a painkiller called Zydrate.

When I first saw the trailer for Repo! The Genetic Opera, I was intrigued but hesitant. As I started watching it for the first time, I cringed. The songs were a bit repetitive, as songs often are, and I feared the entire show would be nothing more than an over the top music video with very little if any plot.

Without spoiling the entire movie, the plot is more in-depth than I expected. Sarah Brightman (Christine in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera) was a surprise as The Voice of GeneCo, Blind Mag. Sarah Brightman, Anthony Stewart Head, and Alexa Vega have incredible voices and were a pleasure to watch and listen to. Anthony Stewart Head put so much passion into the part that I really believed his plight.

This was was my first time encountering Anthony Stewart Head. I was instantly enchanted. Repo! The Genetic Opera is what spurred me to give the Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV Series a chance. The bugging from my daughter was the clincher, of course. I had actually seen Head in Taster’s Choice commercials long ago, but I didn’t know that until recently.

The children of GenoCo are another story. The audience was supposed to hate them, and I did hate them. Sometimes listening to them was like fingernails on a chalkboard followed by repeated stabbings in the ear by a dull knife. However, I think this is actually a compliment to the actors that played the sons, Nivek Ogre and Bill Moseley. I found Paris Hilton’s role as the daughter less offensive than the two sons. I know I’m in the minority here, but I didn’t think she was that horrible. The part, a spoil rich brat, was made for her.

Repo! The Genetic Opera has been dubbed a cult classic in some circles and the worst movie ever made in others. I’m in the cult classic camp. I’ve seen Repo! The Genetic Opera multiple times, the songs get stuck in my head, and I often find myself imagining what else could be done with the setting.

Repo! The Genetic Opera isn’t for everyone, but it has it’s place and it’s following. If you like musicals, rock opera, and horror give Repo! The Genetic Opera a try.

In no particular order, these are my top ten picks for Halloween movie marathons. I’ll be posting one every week day until all ten are posted. I hope you enjoy my picks and let me know what your favorites are. I’m always on the lookout for a good scare. A good spoof is more than welcome, too.

It’s not horror, not scary, not specifically a Halloween movie, but The Nightmare Before Christmas is a charming, original work that can be played from Halloween to Christmas. With tunes that get stuck in your head and characters that are gruesome yet cute at the same time, The Nightmare Before Christmas is a favorite for Halloween. Before the little ones go to bed, they can join in the Halloween movie fun with this one.

I’m a fan scary movies, but in 1993, I went to see The Nightmare Before Christmas in the theater and it captured my heart.

While Kick-Ass is a superhero movie, this is not a kid flick. It’s also one of the better movies I’ve watched in the last year. Violent, sometimes inappropriate, geeky, and silly Kick-Ass took me back to my teen comic book reading years, then back into adulthood, and to my childhood dreams of being Wonder Woman, or Wonder Girl to be more specific. This movie isn’t for everyone, but I can suspend disbelief long enough to watch as a foul-mouthed preteen girl literally kicks the ass of adult after adult. I can suspend disbelief because I wanted to be that girl once upon a time.

Many people, not just myself, wanted to be a superhero at one time or another. Kick-Ass examines what happens when one teen, with no training or powers, steps into a costume and tries to do what many of us have longed to do, but thought impossible. He learns, rather painfully, that it isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

While the ending is predictable, the journey getting there is a violent, action-packed adventure that will possibly have you whining, “I wanna know what it is!” like some of us did.

I haven’t played the Prince Of Persia Sands of Time Trilogy, but I have been in the same room where the games were actively being played. I saw the wall running and action from time to time, but I didn’t witness the storyline in the games. So, I had a slightly different experience with the movie than friends and family that have played the games; sometimes over and over and over again.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was a decent action flick with a few plot irks that made me twitch. I thought the dialog could have been a little more rich, the action was pretty well done, and the acting wasn’t bad. I actually enjoyed the character of Dastan (the main character played by Jake Gyllenhaal). For all the little twinges and could-have’s I felt Prince of Persia still delivered an enjoyable experience.

Prince of Persia is not a movie to remember for years to come, but it isn’t a waste of time. It’s a great movie to watch with the family on “movie night” that’s sure to capture a young teen’s attention and the adults can enjoy as well.

I’m not going to hold back any spoilers since this is so old, so if you haven’t watched Buffy The Vampire Slayer (TV Series) and plan to, please do not read on. This will also not be a review per say but rather my personal feelings on the series. There are much better reviews on Amazon which I will not dare to attempt to duplicate here.

I resisted watching Buffy The Vampire Slayer (TV Series) when it first started. I had seen Buffy the Vampire Slayer (The Movie) and liked it, but couldn’t see watching a TV series with the same premise. Years went by and season after season of the series aired, making me wonder if I’d made a mistake. Maybe there was something to this Buffy TV Series after all. By that time, I was so far behind I decided it wasn’t a good idea to jump in so far into things and just passed it off as a missed opportunity for entertainment.

About two years ago, my daughter had seen a few episodes at friend’s houses and started watching the series on Hulu. Remembering my initial objection, I resisted watching it again. She bugged me for about a year before I noticed that the entire series was on Netflix instant play and finally started watching.

Yes, all of you that kept telling me I needed to watch it were right. The first season was a little shaky action wise and I thought some of the camera work could have been better, but the characters were amazing right from the start. I found myself enthralled by them and couldn’t wait to see what happened next.

In season two the action improved, the camera work improved, and I became increasingly addicted to the series. While I wasn’t all that drawn to the Angel/Buffy relationship in the beginning, season two tugged at me until I started to care, which happened right before Angel turns. Some of the episodes after Angel turns are introspective and poignant. All these building episodes of pain, desire, and passion culminate in the heartbreaking season finale. And yet, throughout the entire season the humor still pervades.

While it’s hard to say I actually have a favorite season, season three is certainly a season I think back to often. While I felt like something was supposed to be explored further concerning the Mayor and his longevity, he is by far one of my favorite villains. A germaphobe, seemingly goody-goody nice guy as the nasty villain was fantastic. I wanted to dislike him, but he was so humorous and corny it was difficult to. The dynamic between the Mayor and Faith mirroring the Giles and Buffy father/daughter relationship was brilliant and enjoyable. While the big battle at the end of the season felt a little silly, it was also epic. I still find myself saying “fire bad, tree pretty” when my brain has shut down.

Season four changed the show a bit as Buffy and Willow left for college five miles away and Xander attempted to work and still remain a part of their lives. The season got a little shaky for me with the introduction of The Initiative, but later in the season it felt more like a natural progression. The Frankenstein storyline was done pretty well even though I found myself cringing at first. I think I started this season feeling like the storyline was going to fall apart, but it didn’t.

I hate Glory. That’s the first thing that comes to mind when I think of season five. At first, I thought it was the actress, but I’ve seen her in things since and didn’t have that knee-jerk hate reaction. Between her whining, complaining, and needy disposition, Glory was difficult for me to stomach. I know I wasn’t supposed to love her, but I wanted to take a stake to her myself. Unlike some, I actually didn’t mind the addition of Dawn, Buffy’s sister, to the cast. She’s annoying and she’s supposed to be, but she added a needed depth and perspective to more than a few episodes. While I felt that the overall storyline was lacking, the characters still drew me in and kept me for another season.

Season six is darker than the previous seasons. The musical episode was awesome. I love Giles’ (Anthony Stewart Head) voice. I still get the songs stuck in my head for no apparent reason. I thought the Spike/Buffy back and forth was a little excessive. Bad, pissed off Willow was frightening. Turning the sweetest, cutest character into the uber bad apocalypse causing mega witch was a bold move and could have easily failed. There was no failing here, only awe. The middle of this season drug some as the subject matter took a dark turn, but I still enjoyed this season. If every season was the same it would quickly become very boring.

Season seven is the most different from the previous seasons. It is dark, but the humor of the previous seasons is almost completely gone. While the lack of humor helps to build the feeling of impending doom, it also makes the last season feel tired, much like Buffy seems throughout the season. While I missed the humor and wanted to smack several of the characters, the ending was fitting. While leaving things wide open as far as the Buffy universe goes, the ending felt huge and final.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer is by far the best TV show I’ve ever watched and I can’t recommend it highly enough. I hope to own the entire series someday, but for now I’ll be content to rewatch episodes on Netflix until they take it off instant play.

I wasn’t expecting much from The Thirst, which was probably a good thing. I didn’t really feel the “darkly humorous gore fest” that Netflix touted in their synopsis. It felt more like an 80’s “gallon drums of blood” type movie. Most of the humor fell flat or was non-existent. The dialog was boring. The characters were boring. I had a hard time really feeling anything for any of them other than annoyance. There’s no real plot to give away and the “twist ending” I’d seen others speak of didn’t seem like a twist to me. I was underwhelmed.

The premise that the two main characters were drug addicts that wound up with a blood addition probably should have had more of an impact on me than it did. I spent these trippy scenes wondering why a vampire would consider blood an addiction. They need blood to survive like we need food to survive. People can have a food addiction, but they can’t completely get rid of food from their lives. I waited for some new concept, some way not involving animal blood (since the cat they ate made them puke) for vampires to survive but there wasn’t one.

Synopsis:

From Netflix:
Clean and sober for the first time in years, Lisa (Clare Kramer) and Maxx (Matt Keeslar) are just beginning to get their lives together when they fall under the spell of the seductive Darius (Jeremy Sisto), the leader of a local vampire clan. Lured into his world, the couple soon finds a new addiction — blood — in this darkly humorous gore fest co-starring Adam Baldwin and featuring the music of Rasputina, Jack the Mad and more.

WTF Moments:

At about an hour in, you can see the empty blood tube across Maxx’s back fill up with blood before spraying from the victim’s neck. I don’t often see things like people walking in the background or the wires above something or when things change places that shouldn’t or other little foibles that happen in movies. This was no little foible and I don’t understand how this got through editing.

Every moment I asked myself, “Was I supposed to laugh there?”

Does the human body really hold that much blood?

She’s dead! Why is there still blood spurting from her neck like a fountain?

Redeeming Qualities:

Introduced a new concept that made me scratch my head for a moment.

Blood, blood, and more blood. Yes, it really was a good and a bad thing at the same time.

Vampires.

Last Words:

If you’re a vampire movie junkie like myself, it’s worth a watch. I’d say it’s in the middle of the pack as far as vampire movies go. It was pretty far from both the worst and best vampire movies I’ve seen.

If you’re a Buffy fan, Clare Kramer was Glory in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series. Tom Lenk (Andrew from the Buffy series) also makes an appearance.

This is the first movie I actually can’t comment much on. I didn’t make it passed the first five minutes. The movie looks like it’s shot with a camcorder and not ala The Blair Witch Project
or Paranormal Activity, but like an actual home movie. There was a light facing the camera that put the two half clothed teens on the couch in shadow. At one point, the girl turns on other lights in the room, also facing the camera, which does little to illuminate the scene.

That’s pretty much as far as I got.

Synopsis:

I don’t know, so here’s the synopsis from Netflix:

In this campy parody of 1980s slasher flicks, a group of teenagers get together in a creepy abandoned house to hold a séance, at which point they can’t help but get naked and begin dying gruesome, improbable deaths. Of course, everyone’s favorite horror archetypes are in play, including the busty blonde, the fearless jock, a pair of uber-dorks, and two pretty girls who like to make out … with each other.

WTF Moments:

Every moment of the five minutes I watched.

Redeeming Qualities:

Stupid Teenagers Must Die is the first movie that I can actually say I couldn’t watch. That counts for something, right?

Last Words:

I should have watched it and done a real review. It might have gotten better. I just couldn’t.

I followed the BTK case as it unfolded in 2004-2005 and I believed this movie would be too real for me to watch. However, for good or bad, there was little that actually brought back those memories in this movie aside from the performance of Kane Hodder. He was believable in the role of Dennis Rader. Aside from Kane Hodder (Friday the 13th), the acting was terrible.

I read reviews that stated how happy people were that the script writers stuck so well to the actual story of BTK. While I’m glad the names of the victims and exact circumstances of their deaths were left out of the film, I’m sorry to disagree with everyone. B.T.K. was very far from the actual story. The script writers had thirty years, minus the ten years he was silent, to work with. It felt like they grabbed a few facts and threw them into whatever story they wanted to tell and the story wasn’t a good one.

The sound left much to be desired as well.

Synopsis:

Inspired by the events surrounding the serial killer Dennis Rader, known by the moniker B.T.K. (bind, torture, kill).

WTF Moments:

Were those mountains I just saw in the plains of Wichita and Park City, Kansas? Really?

Wait, was that a palm tree?

Dennis Rader actually has a daughter and a son. Why was it changed to two daughters? Odd.

A hooker? And he couldn’t kill her? Maybe I missed something, but I don’t remember B.T.K. ever letting anyone live unless it was an accident (the man he shot that lived), he got impatient (the woman he waited on for hours who never came home), or the phone ringing (two kids he planned to kill, but left when the phone rang).

BTK didn’t kill anyone after 1991. He was planning to right before he was caught in 2005, but the movie makes it seem like he killed one person after another until he was caught. There could have been a very interesting story in there about the years between 1991 and 2005. Probably not the story most people would want to see though. I understand crunching 30 years into a short period of time in the movie for the sake of time and pacing, but it still disappoints me.

On Netflix, B.T.K. is listed as “inspired by actual events.” However, at the end of the movie the usual “this is a work of fiction and any resemblance to anyone living or dead is a coincidence” verbage can be seen. Seriously?

Redeeming Qualities:

The only real redeeming quality I could find was Kane Hodder.

Last Words:

I really felt like this movie had very little to do with B.T.K. and much more to do with making money off his name. Dennis Rader is the most “normal Joe” of the serial killers which could make for a very boring movie, but I still think there’s a lot there to work with and a decent film that’s closer to reality could be made. If that movie is ever made, I don’t think I could bring myself to watch it. Since I lived through this and followed what was going on, it makes me feel dirty. I devour serial killer movies, but those based on reality leave a bad taste in my mouth.

But I still watch them. I wonder what that says about me?

While searching for one or two star movies on Netflix to watch and review, I ran across Terror Inside. With 1.9 stars and starring Corey Feldman, I knew I had to give it a watch.

From the beginning I could tell this was a low budget, independent fare. There are some great low budget, indie movies out there, so I expected a decent B horror movie. What I got was a bad script with sometimes terrible dialog. Without the acting chops of Corey Feldman and Tanya Memme, this movie would have been difficult to watch. I hadn’t heard of Tanya Memme before, but she wasn’t bad. I’m going to be keeping an eye out for her.

Synopsis:

Soil samples taken from a small town lake and sent to a university for study contain a virus that causes people to abuse themselves, often in bloody ways.

WTF Moments:

The scientist has a grant to find an ancient virus in a soil sample, but he doesn’t use gloves when handling the soil?

Get a virus that makes you want to hurt yourself and it turns you into a goth. Hmmm.

She cut off her what?! OW… ow… ow! I cringed. I’m cringing again now. Ow.

Redeeming Qualities:

The plot has a “been there done that” feel to it, but I don’t believe I’ve actually seen it done.

I was a huge Corey Feldman fan as a teen and it was good to see him in something a little more recent that isn’t a reality show or a part two that should have been done years and years ago.

Last Words:

I feel like this movie, being as dialog heavy as it is, should take a note from the “show don’t tell” advice from writers. Don’t tell me three times how you feel, show me once and it will resonate. Showing doesn’t have to involve fancy special effects, either.

I’ve toyed with the idea of reviewing movies in the past, but several people pointed out that I like everything and I’m not critical enough to review movies. I’d have to agree actually. I can usually find redeeming qualities or at least some entertainment value in almost any movie.

So, I’ve decided to put my ability (some would say flaw) to the test. I’m going to scrape the bottom of the barrel on Netflix and find the lowest rated movies, watch them, then try to find some redeeming quality or something that entertained me. I have a feeling this isn’t going to be as easy as it sounds… or maybe it will be. Maybe I am just that easily amused.

I don’t know how often I’ll do this; just whenever the mood strikes me I suppose. I might even throw in my thoughts about higher rated movies here and there as well just to annoy the hyper critical.