onirique Reviews

Zombie Strippers! (2008)

Closer to 'From Dusk till dawn" than an average Troma movie

[8/10 · 18 June 2008]

So the American army is planning to create a serum to make super-soldiers. Main goal is to make soldiers who can be killed and still complete the operation. It worked great with women but when men were involved, it began to suck and brought uncontrollable reactions.

The D-squad is hired to stop the zombie invasion in the scientific facility of W Corporation (yes, W, as in the soon-to-be-ex-president) but one of the members is bitten and fall in a strip-club. Women there will find that being a zombie is a nice ace in making a strip. Let the carnage continue ! I was expecting a gore movie without money and full of amateurism, "à la Troma". I was really surprised: the movie is extremely funny and clever (huge political position inside and a few philosophical thoughts by the way). It's not always of good taste but it's not as fart and sh!t centered as in Troma movies.

If I began by citing Roberto Rodriguez's gore movie, it's also that Jay Lee succeed in being director and editor of his own movie. The editing has a very good pace and you're never bored. The director has also written a anthology scene with two strippers fighting like in Dragon Ball Z which was hilarious.

Add to that that actors and actresses are not as bad as we could expect in this kind of production and you understand that, even if we can see CGI too frankly, Zombie Strippers is a movie really worth watching.

Drawing Blood (1999)

Bad bad bad horror movie

[2/10 · 19 February 2008]

A female vampire kills young women and paints with their blood. She has an assistant who doesn't want to be a vampire, so he has to do what she orders or be turned into a blood sucker. After a few kills, the assistant gets remorse and falls in love with a homeless girl.

What can I say about this movie ? That its pacing is over-slow, that it has some strange sound effects (never a bite sounded so strange) and ambiance (new jazz here I come) and that lights don't seem to be included on the set. It looks like an "auteur" horror movie with all the self-sufficiency inside.

The plot is completely stupid and as you can guess, it's the female vampire who explains how to kill her even if she doesn't have to do it; of course, crosses, light, garlic and sticks don't work.

It's not even a funny lousy movie. Perhaps with some friends and a lot of beers, it can't have its funny sides (to be honest, it's funny during 10 - 15 minutes near the end of the movie). Don't be fooled by the Troma sticker, it's one the bad movie they present.

Putevoy obkhodchik (2007)

Not so bad, but slasher non-sense and lack of originality

[5/10 · 12 February 2008]

Well, our robbers had a fine plan escaping the bank except for the killer being in the abandoned metro system. Now they have to survive, managing 2 hostages, 1 cop and maybe treachery inside the team.

It was not as bad as I thought. Clearly, Igor Shavlak has a good team to work with and the movie has a peculiar feeling (image and sound speaking). It's a technical demo explaining that Russian directors can do as well as American ones.

Too bad they forgot something to make the story interesting. Despite its short playtime (1 h 20 min), there is no really anything going on. The killer is not inventive and not manipulative (though the place suggested a nice "cat & mice" game) enough. The movie has a really good scene at the end when the last two survivors are followed by the killer and finally interact. It should have been this all along the movie to be really enjoyable.

If "old nightmares have a new face" as it is written on the poster, it sure reminds other movies: Silent Hill, Jeepers Creepers, Descent. Not a bad basis to work on but as I said before it lacks the originality.

With a good plot though, I'm sure that Scavlak and his team can make a fine movie to watch.

Akoibon (2005)

Huge disappointment

[3/10 · 9 December 2006]

Two guys are sailing to Villa Mektoub. Daniel is a fan of Georges Moustaki and is going to meet another female fan with whom he chatted on the Internet. Nader has to bring Charles Barnes, the Villa Mektoub's owner and former 70's superstar, to mafiosi in order to save his friend's life. These men decide to swap identities which will bring as you might guess, some difficulties.

Edouard Baer is indeed known in France so for some nonsense humor. A french nonsense humor which means that it's just a lot for words stuck together not making any sense and not being funny (most of the time, just improvisation). I really liked Baer in most films he played in so I thought that maybe his own movies would be slightly different from what he offered on TV.

But no. Akoibon (whatsthepoint in English) begins with 55 minutes of something that looks like a thriller AND like a Eric Rohmer movie. Loose pace, not really funny. And then, here comes the twist. Too bad it's this late in the movie. Anyway, Akoibon doesn't get any funnier and doesn't enter the meta-film making dimension you would find in "Les clefs de bagnole" de Laurent Baffie.

It's really strange that some people are willing to play in this kind of movies (we're talking huge actors as Jean Rochefort or Jeanne Moreau) or even producing it.

I think I fell asleep 6 or 7 times during the whole movie (and I wasn't tired), hoping for a really good idea that would make my efforts worthy. I think that sums up the whole thing.

DOA: Dead or Alive (2006)

Good funny movie with a lot of action

[8/10 · 24 November 2006]

Here we're not talking about a noir movie remake, nor Takaski Miike movies. D.O.A. (Dead or Alive) is the video game from Tecmo adaptation (games went on Playstation 1, Playstation 2 then on Xbox and Xbox 360).

Well, the plot is fairly useless: fighters are invited in a sort of tournament and some thieves get into it to steal some money. As a matter of fact, an evil plot arises ! (With an old and used Eric Roberts, playing the really bad guy.) What is fun about this movie is that there are gorgeous women fighting in some tiny suit (anyway, it's the "marque de fabrique" of the video game) but they are not as physically impossible as they are in the game. There are also a lot of actions scene that I liked because it was really over the top, actors always posing and bullettime effects being used in a comic way. I'm not sure kung-fu purists will like it but if you like fighting movies from time to time, you might appreciate it. So D.O.A. is not to be taken seriously and I think that people who made this movie really thought about it too.

It's kind of a family action movie (as blades cut clothes and trees but not people - no blood here) and more a good beer, chips & friends action movie with a lot of laughs inside.

It's not a spoof movie though it has a lot of common with this genre, it has beautiful girls, a lot of action and besides one scene at the end of the movie (the dramatic one that cut the movie momento), it's really a fast and fun ride.

The Rowdy Girls (2000)

Enjoyable movie

[6/10 · 30 June 2006]

Frankly, I don't like westerns very much. If I did purchase the DVD version of "Rowdy Girls", it was for Shannon Tweed, Julie Strain and the Troma sticker on the DVD.

For the Troma part, Lloyd Kaufman is executive producer and Troma just distribute the movie. Some kind of participation but not the kind of things you expect in a Troma movie. So "Rowdy Girls" isn't particularly violent. It's a western, of course there are gunshots, even dead people but it's not explicit such as in "Toxic Avenger" for instance.

"Rowdy Girls" is less than a hour and a half, so it's going quick, has enjoyable scenes with nudity (even though, as mentioned above, it's not explicit) and humor. It makes a good movie to rent and enjoy on a Saturday night.

Un vrai bonheur, le film (2005)

A wedding is messed up with the arrival of the bride's former lover.

[7/10 · 14 April 2006]

When Mathilde and Francois decide to marry, they can't imagine that their mutual friend Christophe (and Mathilde's former lover), gone in the jungle for two years, still have feelings for Mathilde.

Besides, most of their friends, unhappy in their own marriages, decide to set things up. In a big house where everything goes wrong (including incompetents servants and not understandable technicians), guests will have something worth their money.

Un vrai bonheur is a wedding movie oscillating between comedy and drama. It has a really good pace knowing how to play with jokes and more emotional moments as characters (who know each other from a long time) decide to reveal themselves and change their families.

At the end, it was a really enjoyable movie with good and underestimated actors. As it is a first movie and as drama episodes are sometimes too much stressed, it might not be a movie to buy on DVD but it's however worth a try !