CRAP movies ii

DARK UNIVERSE

A casually dressed astronaut is returning from some space mission. As it turns out, he's the first civilian astronaut. He starts a petty piss match with his boss on the ground. There is ship trouble and said astronut cuts off comm to go see what it is.

A few early digital morph effects and one transformed astronaut later, the spacecraft is lost. Meanwhile we cut to a swamp. A guy and a gal watch the ship crash to earth and explode, which makes them want to screw.

Nice tits. Do we have to go back to the monster movie? Fred insists. Oh well.

Rod Kendrick (Actor Joe Estevez - brother of Martin Sheen), bumbles through the movie, making a speech and sometimes, being in two places at once as he is both in the swamp and back before the cameras making a speech. One good thing about Joe is that he sounds EXACTLY like Martin. It's unintentional humor at its best.

A shadow on the crashed spaceship. It looks like THE alien because, yep, this is another ALIEN rip-off movie: Only in the category of WORST ALIEN rip-off movies.

Despite the monster, the nudity, and explosions, DARK UNIVERSE is a craptacular yawnfest, care of director Steve Latshaw (also produced by) who went on to grow and direct movies like, BIOHAZARD: THE ALIEN FORCE and JACK-O.

Upon seeing the movie, you won't believe that it was actually written, since it looks like so much cinematic goulash. But it was and Patrick Moran (also produced by) gets the credit. You may know Patrick from movies like BIOHAZARD: THE ALIEN FORCE and JACK-O.

For some inexplicable reason, the movie keeps cutting back, for all of its 90 minutes, to Rod Kendrick making that vainglorious speech about the crash and how we, as a people, will endure.

Yeah, well no shit hayseed. You crashing your Monster Truck Spaceship won't bring the world to its knees, buck-a-roo.

Fred Olen Ray gets executive producer credit, which means he probably ponied up the money, which means he likely gets at least 50% of the profit, whatever that is. So Steve and Patrick may have made squat on this film, but at least they got a nifty demo reel out of it to show off their talent, right?

The Hook:
Joe Estevez is Martin Sheen's brother and he sounds like Martin too!

Personally I think Joe is just as good an actor as Martin, so it beats me why he goes for these cheap cheque roles. But that's his business not mine.

HYBRID

The outer limits of Horror is a pretty dull place. You have what is actually Horror, and then you have everything outside of it - like Pauley Shore movies.

Did you read my brief review of DARK UNIVERSE above? Well HYBRID is even worse if you can believe it. In fact, I'm guessing that this was the worst movie of 1997. And I don't say that like some tweeny little message board brat.

Observe that HYBRID starts with a bunch of stock footage. A spaceship is flying through space. Then it is flying toward earth. It attacks helpless junked cars for no reason.

Soon other spaceships join in the fun - attacking junked cars: they flip, they X-pload, they Boin'.

They blow'd up good!

They blow'd up REAL good!

And all of this culminates in some military stock footage of an A-Bomb test. Ah well, funs over, time to get back to work.

Cut to two people who can't act. They are afraid of something and say something to the effect of (I didn't memorize this and please don't ask me to watch it again); "You go that way and I'll go this way!"

Always a bad idea to divide your forces. Either way they get killed. We are less than ten minutes into the movie and two wildly disparate things have happened - not even the most tenuous of threads to connect them.

We cut to a group of people rumbling through the post apocalyptic desert in a DAMNATION ALLEY vehicle (or ARK II if you are a late seventies Saturday morning TeeVee weenie). They have to get to shelter before the "Ion storm" hits (whatever the hell that is). They make their way through the desert, bitching and sniping at each other all the way to pass for character development (this goes on for an unreasonably long time, without let up, throughout the entire movie).

They pick up a hitchhiker; make it to a science lab; then find out that something Big and Deadly is roaming the halls of said lab and killed the previous occupants off.

We're trapped between a monster and an ion storm! What To Do?

Well I'd get back in the god damn armored vehicle and wait out the storm, but no.

They all split up to explore the science station, bitching and sniping at each other all the way to pass for character development.

Now for the standard Fred Olen Ray lesbian shower scene.

Yes, I know: these people are fully aware that they are in the very Heart of Death - dead bodies everywhere (imagine the smell!) - but they are still going to shower and have softcore lesbianism. This is handled late night Cinemax style by the nicely streamlined body of Brinke Stevens (43 at the time and still looking good!) and the buxom body of J.J. North.

AUGH! One of their number gets killed off by said monster!

Now it's time for a VHS tape left behind by the dead scientists which will explain what the monster is.

It's a Freakin' Monster! It doesn't need to be explained!

But, we're gonna do it anyway.

Time's a wastin' as the Professor of Computer Science tries to figure out how to use a VCR.

Then they all split up to explore the science station - again - bitching and sniping at each other - again - all the way to pass for character development.

Now for the standard Fred Olen Ray straight sex scene.

Yes, I know: these people are fully aware that they are in the very Heart of Death (Gawd! The fucking Smell!) - the crew of the station was slaughtered and now One Of Their Own was gruesomely killed off - and they Know what the monster Is, but they are Still going to have soft-core straight sex, CINEMAX STYLE! This is handled by the buxom body of J.J. North and some guy.

Another of their number gets killed off by said monster.

Now it's time for the clear goo scenes to let us know that, not only is it a monster, it is an "icky" monster!

Then they all split up - again - to explore the science station - Again - bitching and sniping at each other - AGAIN - all the way to pass for character development.

Now for the standard Fred Olen Ray Monster sex scene.

This is handled by Brinke Stevens and Fred's then 18 year old son, Christopher (Whoa! Thanks pop!), who is covered entirely in a stupid rubber monster suit (Yeah, thanks a lot, Pop!). The soft-core sex scene is done

CINEMAX STYLE! Hai-YA!

Fred Olen Ray has never made good movies but a few of his have gained some semblance of cult status like ALIEN DEAD, or notoriety like HOLLYWOOD CHAINSAW HOOKERS, or so damn stupid it has to be seen to be believed like EVIL TOONS.

The writing credit for this kitty litter goes to my bud, Sean O'Bannon (NIGHT SHADE, BLACK WIDOW ESCORT), who is actually a good guy and has some good scripts he's sitting on. But holy crap: The shit he writes for Fred!

I swear you will get so interested in the soft core porn that the shitty monster movie wrap around will be even more difficult to endure. For you conservatives in the audience, Rush Limbaugh makes a few very unlikely appearances, I kid you not. He likely didn't get paid for it.

The Hook:
DamnifIknow!

EDEN LOG

There's this guy in trouble, see? He wakes up, covered in mud, half submerged in it, in fact, and surrounded by dead bodies.

He doesn't appear to know who he is or how to get help, he just wants to get away from all the death.

Whatever happened here messed with his brain a bit and through his wanderings he tries and piece his life back together.

This is all good, interesting, compelling in fact (hey, I've been there myself - well without the dead bodies as far as you know), and I'm onboard for it.

Unfortunately this meandering in the barely lit dark goes on for far, Far, FAR too long. And its not Fahrvergnügen, either!

There's no story here. Just wandering. Sometimes the guy (Clovis Cornillac: MALEFIQUE, POLTERGAY, THE SNAKE) passes a wall or drape that lights up with a projection of someone talking to him, although it's made clear that he simply, somehow triggered a projection. The person talking is a recording who knows nothing about him and can't help.

Some guys with guns appear but whether they're rescue or assassins our boy doesn't know and is afraid to find out.

Still more wandering and UGH!

This bullshit goes on for more than half the movie!

Then, when all of this tedious nonsense starts on the path of finally, painfully pulling itself together, the reason for it all is half-assed and senseless.

The reason that's established was also familiar to me. I'd heard a lot of the plot in another movie. A 2003 computer animated movie called KAENA: THE PROPHECY and the co-writer and co-director of EDEN LOG, Pierre Bordage, was also the co-writer of KAENA. His very next movie was EDEN LOG.

Pierre recycled his contribution to KAENA and it was grafted onto co-writer Frank Vestial's script!

It spoils nothing to tell you that, like KAENA, its all about the sap.

"Sap?" you may well say. "I don't get it."

You don't get it because I won't do spoilers even on the worst movies.

It also spoils nothing when I tell you that the grand climax SFX is a cgi disaster so awkward it even makes Asylum Pictures cgi look good.

That said, some critics adored this but they couldn't convince the audience who saw EDEN LOG.

The Hook:
Seems actor Clovis has some cache in Europe, where they push this flick. In the U.S., his movies sell at Dollar Tree.