PCP on DVD - Bad movies 6-pack

PCP on DVD reviews:  Bad Movies 6 Pack

Time for your next hit of PCP:  Pop Culture Panorama.  Due to circumstances beyond my control, I have developed about a 60 movie backlog of films to review, of films I’ve watched over the past couple months.  I’ve had enough time to watch the movies and jot down some observations, but not enough time until now to actually write the reviews.  So, I will be doing shorter than normal reviews of these films until I am caught back up, in convenient multi-packs of movies by genre.  Today I’ll be tackling 6 lousy movies I made the mistake of watching recently.  These reviews are going to be super-short, because I don’t want to waste any more time than I have to on these films.

Legion – 2009; Rated R.  100 minutes.  Starring Paul Bettany, Dennis Quaid, Tyrese Gibson, & Adrianne Palicki.  My rating:  4 out of 10.

What this film lacks in subtlety it makes up for in stupidity.  A movie about a coming apocalypse and a war between man and heaven, and it takes places in a diner named “Paradise Falls.”  Wow, could you be any more obvious?  The film is poorly done and looks a lot better in the trailers than it does in full length.

The rest of the awful is after the jump...

PCP on DVD - Horror Movie 6-Pack

Time for your next hit of PCP:  Pop Culture Panorama.  Due to circumstances beyond my control, I have developed about a 50 movie backlog of films to review, of films I’ve watched over the past couple months.  I’ve had enough time to watch the movies and jot down some observations, but not enough time until now to actually write the reviews.  So, I will be doing shorter than normal reviews of these films until I am caught back up, in convenient multi-packs of movies by genre.  Today I’ll be tackling 6 creepy horror/thriller movies I’ve caught on DVD:  The Crazies, A Perfect Getaway, Orphan, The Orphanage, Drag Me to Hell, and Splice.

The Crazies – 2010; Rated R.  101 minutes.  Starring:  Timothy Olyphant; Radha Mitchell; Joe Anderson; Danielle Panabaker.  My rating:  7 out of 10.

The Crazies is a remake of a 70s horror film of the same name.  It’s similar to small town zombie outbreak films, but instead of the infection causing everyone to become the living dead, they instead go completely insane.  It has a couple mid-way decent scares, and some impressive gore sequences and creative violence, but overall it isn’t as scary as it could have been.  It is interesting to see Timothy Olyphant play a normal, noble guy however.  I’m so used to seeing him as a villain or as an anti-hero that to see him playing the true hero was a new experience for me.  I also liked the overall larger conspiracy behind the disease causing the insanity, and the lengths that the conspirators were going to attempt to keep things under wraps.  Not a terrible film, but not as good as it could have been either.

PCP on DVD - The Stepfather

Review:  The Stepfather.  Rating: 2 out of 5 stars. 

The Stepfather is a remake of a 1980s movie of the same name, although given how poor this movie is I’m not certain why they bothered.  This could easily have been a made for TV movie, and considering the cast of the film is all people I’m used to seeing on TV, that would have made more sense.  The movie stars Dylan Walsh (Nip/Tuck) as the title bad guy, who marries into the Harding family consisting of Sela Ward (Sisters, CSI: NY), Penn Badgley (Gossip Girl), Skyler Samuels (The Gates), and Braeden Lemasters (Men of a Certain Age).  The rest of the supporting cast is all familiar faces from TV too, including Sherry Stringfield (ER), Jon Tenney (The Division), and Paige Turco (The Agency).  The only person that is more of a movie actress than a TV one is Amber Heard (Zombieland), who is apparently contractually obligated to be in a bikini for the duration of the film.  Anyways, the reason I am talking about the cast of this film so much is because I spent more time going “where do I know them from?” than actually caring about the plot.  There’s very little suspense to the film, considering that the previews and the opening minute of the film make it crystal clear that Dylan Walsh is no saint.  Also, these are some good actors.  I have watched the shows that most of them are in, and that is why I gave this film a shot, primarily because I loved Dylan Walsh on Nip/Tuck.  Sadly, that was a mistake.  The actors in this film have done some great work on TV, and they deserve a better movie role than this piece of garbage.  Do not waste your time, you’re not missing anything.  The scares are weak, the plot boring, and the thrills and gore are missing.  Skip this movie.  If you don’t, you have no one to blame but yourself.