No.279 : Whatever It Takes (2000)

Whatever It Takes at the IMDb

Back to school now for a look at this formulaic but still fun high school film that sees early outings from Jesse Pinkman and James Franco. If you have seen any film where the prom is a feature of the finale you’ll have pretty much seen this, especially if you are a student of Cyrano De Bergerac and the all-time classic ‘Pretty in Pink’.

Our hero is Ryan, a nerdy accordion player who is starting to outgrow his dweebish friends including Pinkman, doing a poor man’s Jeff Spicoli, and Tom Hanks’ son. He lives next door to Maggie and the two talk across their unfeasibly close balconies. From the first scene you know that they will end up together, but we’ve got 90 minutes to fill so let’s have them as just good friends for now.

Ryan fancies the high school sweetheart in the shape of the unobtainable Ashley, whilst high school jock Franco likes Maggie. With both men having no chance of landing their chosen babe they hatch a plan to help each other pimp out their friend so that some stranger can get his hole. Lovely.

There are some slim slide plots including Pinkman’s quest for a bit of a statue and a funny and sadistic games teacher played by that guy off ‘The West Wing’ who throws baseballs at the kids and tells them to “Walk it off”. Grrr hope he gets his comeuppance!

The sordid plan goes well but Ryan soon realises the hot girl isn’t all that. She has a hairy back and scabby feet. Seems nice enough though, until she disparages a midget at a carnival and pukes up, so she deserves all she gets. Meanwhile Ryan is feeding Franco lines so that he can make some headway with Maggie.

This involves the world’s oldest computer and a scene ripped off, fully intact from ‘Roxanne’, but soon we’re off to the prom. Who will end up with whom and will the mildly bad people get a fitting finale? Of course!

This was mild ‘12’ certificate fun but there was enough subversive humour to keep me entertained. Most of it was due to Pinkman in his first role, who has most of the best lines and, it looked like, the most fun. The lead is a bit dull and the hottest girl in school wasn’t all that - the blossoming next door neighbour looked a better bet from the start.

It was hard to care about a load of white privileged kids having their fancy prom but there were enough laughs to keep me invested. Not subtle stuff you understand but when the old woman farted when getting lifted to the toilet I did smirk. I’m not proud.

The cast was largely good and I enjoyed seeing several familiar faces including Champ Kind sporting the last traces of his hair.

The values espoused were dubious at best but love won out in the end and all the bad people got humiliated in public so that’s all right then. I don’t think Ryan earned his happy ending as he was a right prick throughout but when you mix a formula you have to stick to the recipe!


Best Bit :Prom over a swimming pool - what can go wrong?    ‘W’ Rating : 15/23

No.272 : What Keeps You Alive (2018)

What Keeps You Alive

Canadian survival drama next, as we join a couple of married ladies on their weekend away at a remote family house. You can tell from that poster that things won’t go to plan; but who’s the danger?

The couple, Jackie and Julie, have been married a year and seem very happy although they do keep their bras on when having a cuddle! We learn snippets about their lives such as Jackie is a diabetic and needs regular insulin jabs. I knew that morsel of information would be important later.

The house was built by Jackie’s uncle who had also taught her to hunt. She recalls a time when she shot a bear and she was made to eat it over the course of several days - the attitude being that you only kill what keeps you alive - That’s the name of the film!

The girls meet up with the neighbour from across the lake who knew Jackie from years back, but she knew her as ‘Megan’. We also learn that a friend ‘Jenny’ had died in unspecified circumstances. This causes Julie to question what she knows about Jackie and starts to dig deeper into her past. Huge mistake - as Jackie throws her off a cliff in what was a surprising twist. Jackie goes home to rehearse what she’ll say to the police but when she returns to the body it has gone - Julie is alive and a danger to Jackie’s insurance scam plans.

The two stalk each other through the woods and we learn that Jackie is a grade A wack job who has had a series of wives and partners who have come a cropper. Has she underestimated Julie though? Maybe, as the injured Julie is rubbish at rowing and gets taken back to the house by Jackie with a pre-planned dinner date with the neighbours all that’s keeping her alive.

The dinner party goes terribly for all concerned with the body count soon amounting to everyone in the cast. The rest of the film twist turns like a corkscrew as each lady gets the upper hand before relinquishing it - who, if anyone, will survive? And is falling from 150 feet onto rocks really that survivable?

I liked this film despite some initial misgivings. It was set up as a mystery thriller but soon became a full on battle with some cracking bone crunching injuries and logic defying twists.

The direction was well done with some inventive angles used to convey the action; with surprises flashing in from out of frame before you get a chance to say 'for fuc…'

The two leads were great with psycho Jackie well played by Amy Adams look-alike, Hannah Emily Anderson. I liked her search for Julie as she changed from concerned to resting bitch face in a heartbeat. Brittany Allen was good too, as the put upon Julie, and despite some daft character decisions she pulled off the ‘oh no my wife is mental’ role well.

The last 20 minutes was a bit of a stretch of credibility with chances to end the whole drama being lost. ‘You know what? I’ll leave the tranquillised body there - actually I’ll drive back and have a look. What she’s gone…?!’

The only others in the cast, apart from a flashback young Julie, were the neighbours Sarah and Daniel. They were thinly drawn with Daniel a drunk (he was always drinking!) and Sarah a bit of a screamer and rightly so!

The film kept up a fair pace and although we saw that cliff top a few times too many, there was enough going on to keep me interested. A bit of tighter scripting towards the end would have helped, with the final twist well telegraphed from the start. 

Still good stuff and worth your time.

W Rating 18/23  Best Bit : Going Down!

No.270 : Why Him? (2016)

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No.256 : Words and Pictures (2013)

Words and Pictures at the IMDb

Clive Owen and Juliette Binoche star as rival teachers trying to prove which of words (language) or pictures (art) is best. If that sounds a bit of a pointless endeavour you’ll not be surprised to learn that the film is too.

Owen plays Jack, that tired old cliché of a character of the great writer who hasn’t written anything worthwhile in years who takes a teaching job to finance his creeping alcoholism. Binoche plays a totally different character, a great painter who hasn’t painted anything worthwhile for years due to her creeping arthritis who takes on a teaching job.

The pair teach at a school for precocious teenagers who can’t act. Clive’s lessons are like something out of ‘Dead Poet’s Society’ with the kids all admiring and fancying him in equal measure despite his contempt for the job and his fat and unshaven appearance. Binoche limps when she remembers to do so and has a stick, but a steely determination to help her pupils - they’re the original odd couple!

Owen takes a shine to Juliette and soon engages her in his tiresome ‘how many syllables’ game to which she rightly tells him to piss off. Owen isn’t discouraged however and tries to woo the stuffy artist while juggling with a career crisis and a distant son who is embarrassed about pissed old Dad.

During one of Owen’s unstructured classes a debate arises over the phrase ‘a picture paints a thousand words’ to which he argues that words can supply the details and emotion that a picture cannot. When Binoche’s art class hear of this they are outraged; surely a good picture can convey a lot more than pages of a book? This not very interesting argument captivates the school and a big showdown is planned for the end of the term/film.

Meanwhile Owen is up for dismissal for being pissed all the time and for not offering the school any published works to raise their profile. He wisely chooses to steal his son’s best poem for himself and sets off to get drunk to celebrate. Elsewhere Binoche is trying out new ways to make a mess by dropping paint onto canvas using different methods.

For reasons not clear Owen manages to get Binoche into bed before spoiling it all by getting drunk and wrecking her new ‘masterpiece’ a big red and blue splodge that frankly looked better once Clive had his way with it.

With his career and relationships all pissed against a wall Clive decides to try Alcoholics Anonymous and start afresh with Binoche and his son. But will it be too little too late and with the ‘Words and Pictures’ showdown coming up can he win the day for words? C’mon words!

The premise of this film was a bit like the Hugh Grant vehicle ‘Music and Lyrics’ and when I say Grant’s film was more enjoyable you’ll understand what a clunker ‘Words and Pictures’ is.

The main issue is the central relationship which has no spark whatsoever. Binoche, lovely as she is, cannot act while speaking English and Clive Owen didn’t seem to believe in either his wooing or his madcap fervour for words over pictures. You are probably thinking ‘can’t we have both?’ - well don’t as that will spoil the ending!

Some of the arguments were quite interesting but they were articulated by some of the worst teen actors you will ever see and they look like winners of an essay writing contest reading their work on screen. There is a lamentable subplot about an Asian girl with self worth issues but that was ghastly and predictably resolved. Don’t even ask about Owen’s woes with his prissy son - awful!

So what we have is a no rom, rom-com with no com either. You’d think in a high school there would be some chemistry - I blame the cuts.

Words and pictures? If they are presented like this I’ll have neither please!

Best Bit _ Owen does some redecorating.
‘W’ Rating 7/23

No.231 : Where the Green Ants Dream (1984)

Where the Green Ants Dream at the IMDb

 This was German director Werner Herzog’s first film in English although the copy I saw was dubbed in German and had English subtitles - long way for a short cut!

The film is all filmed on location in Australia and deals with the cultural clash between some native Aborigines and a mining conglomerate who want to extract uranium from land the Aborigines see as sacred. Although an environmental warning, the film is also a parable of sorts and although the subject matter may seem a bit dry it was interesting enough to keep me engaged.

From the off you get a fair idea of where the film’s sympathies lie with a long tracking shot of piles of debris left over from previous excavations. It’s clear that a mess has been made of large swathes of the country and to reinforce this there is stock footage of extreme weather which either indicates climate change or an angry God - I’m going with the latter!

Mining engineer Bruce Spence (Gyro Captain out of the ‘Mad Max’ films) is in his office dealing with an old lady who seems somewhat out of place in the middle of the Outback. She has lost her dog in the mines and asks if it can be found. Bruce fobs her off, but she is a persistent old bird and her quest continues throughout the film, running parallel with the main narrative. I’m pretty sure the lost dog is a metaphor for something, lost innocence maybe, but it’s not made clear and as regular readers will attest, nuance isn’t my strongest suit.

Anyway, the new mine needs some bore holes and progress is halted when some Aborigines show up and block the bulldozers. The workers are keen to shove them off but Bruce, perhaps fearing bad publicity, engages with them to see what it would take to move them on. He has all the right permits but the Aborigines claim ancient title to the lands where, they claim, the green ants dream. In their folklore if the green ants are awoken the world will end. Frankly I was hoping this would happen but seemingly the budget wouldn’t stretch to it.

The mining bosses come in with a raft of offers but all are turned down. Bruce starts to see what he’s up against when he encounters another group in a supermarket huddled round the spot where a favoured tree once grew that was cut down for the store. The bosses decide to seduce the tribal leaders with a trip to the big city and shower them in tat such as a digital watch that no one can turn off - another metaphor?

On the trip home the Aborigines are impressed with a large aeroplane and a goodwill offer is made to supply such a machine to the Aborigines despite them having no airport or conceivable use for it. With this sweetener in place the action transfers to the court room where ancient claims are weighed against the law of the land. Will the miners be sent on their way and the Aborigines left with their land’s mineral wealth intact? What to do you think?!

I quite enjoyed this film but it was too indistinct in what it was trying to be. A factual drama? Part documentary? Social commentary? Fantasy parable? I’ve no idea. Lots of stuff was laid on thick with the evil suits clearly trying to screw with the local heroes. There were a lot of metaphors such as a lift that kept breaking down, perhaps suggesting that progress wasn’t all it was meant to be. I never figured out the relevance of the lost dog although the big green plane was a bit more obvious.

Bruce Spence was the only actor I knew in the film and he did a decent job of holding it together. Most of the Aboriginal cast were not actors but they all had great faces and presences. Things like their drinking problems were touched on but for the most part they were the innocents being treated badly by corporate interests and progress in general.

The film was pretty clear where its sympathies lay and this was shown via Bruce’s character who starts off seeing the Aborigines as a nuisance before gradually going more and more native himself. The politics were not of the subtle variety and there was a lot of mystical stuff going on, such as a key artefact being presented to the court that we, the viewer, weren’t allowed to see but overall there was enough to like to justify a recommendation - just.

Best Bit : Pit vigil with Pal
‘W’ Score 14/23

No.226 : Why Stop Now? (2012)

Why Stop Now? at the IMDb

There’s no question mark on this movie’s poster but it appears on the title card at the end, and that’s good enough for us!

That poster is all wrong - it also contains the sub-title ‘A funny thing happened on the way to rehab’ and that’s patently false advertising!

Jesse Eisenberg plays Eli, a piano playing prodigy who looks after his drug addled mother while battling with demons of his own. The film opens with his arriving at an important audition for a select school with a cut hand. His teacher tries to calm him down from his hyper state and we are taken back a day to see how we arrived at this situation.

Things start at a teenage party where we witness Jesse’s social awkwardness amongst his peers and especially girls. He manages to impress with some virtuoso piano playing before spewing up - you hardly ever get that with Richard Clayderman! He has some chat with a girl who clearly likes him before heading off home to his demanding mother.

Mum is due to check into rehab the next day and Jesse sees this as a way to get her off his hands so that he can start a new life at his fancy school. Things fall apart however when Mum’s pee tests positive for nothing meaning she can’t get the state sponsored care she needs. A nurse tells her that if she can get high and ‘fail’ the drugs test she can get into the facility and Jesse can get on with his plans.

From here things start to fall apart in a predictable manner. Mother and son try to buy drugs but the dealers are out of stock. Jesse’s command of Spanish allows a deal to be set up but can the drugs be sourced, the mother committed , the girl won and audition passed?

This was an OK ‘one crazy day’ type film but I never felt invested in Jesse’s frantic and random character. I got that he was at least as mixed up as his Mom but it was hard to care when his annoying mannerisms and selfish behaviour were all that we were offered. There was a degree of redemption reached but he still came across as a dick who was making bad choices. I mean who would agree to go and broker a drug deal for some random and dangerous dealers?

That said the dealers were very nice and would no doubt be chased out of business in five minutes in the real world. One was the ‘Sheeeeit’ guy from ‘The Wire’ and he didn’t even do his line! Melissa Leo was pretty good as the hippy Mom but the potential girl friend was as wet as an otter’s pocket and clearly not worth the effort.

The piano playing was good and having the final scenes set amongst a Revolutionary War re-enactment added a bit of colour, but over all this was a bit dull with no laughs at all. Why Stop Now? Because we all got bored after half an hour!

‘W’ Score 14/23
Best Bit - Party Puking Recital

No.225 - We Are the Freaks (2013)

We Are The Freaks at the IMDb

You get a lot of unheard of British films showing up on Netflix - it’s almost like they found a big skip of them behind a closed down Blockbuster store. I’ve watched a few and they are invariably rubbish - check out ‘Full English Breakfast’ if you want a prime example. Most of these films concern what Alan Partridge would term ‘Bad Slags’ with gangsters and football hooligans taking centre stage at a performance no one is watching. Except me.

‘We Are the Freaks’ doesn’t bode well with its poster showing a gaggle of yoof in front of the Union flag which has largely been hijacked by those promoting racism and intolerance. On that front it surprised me - there was no real violence and not much swearing - unfortunately there wasn’t much else either.

The film opens with Jamie Blackley doing narration whilst his character Jack walks down the street. You quickly see that the film will be somewhat subversive when he says he hates voice-overs and stock footage just as they show stock footage of Margaret Thatcher. Bit of politics and self deprecation there! He also draws a gun and shoots a Goth but it’s alright he’s only fantasising. He’s a frustrated wannabe writer stuck in a dead end job and his flights of fancy take him out of his dull existence.

He has similarly disenfranchised friends in the shape of Chunks, who has stolen his brother's Porsche, and Parsons who is in a relationship with the funny looking secretary off ‘Life’s Too Short’. The lads plan a big night out and, after scoring some drugs from Tyres out of ‘Spaced’, they crash a posh party hosted by the parents of Jack’s fantasy love who we know is too good for him as she’s always playing musical instruments when we see her - classy, you understand.

As you’d expect the night doesn’t go to plan with the three lads separating to have their own adventure. There are all pretty low key with one stealing a flag, one busting his banjo string whist having pretty sedate sex and the third wondering if he should open an envelope - it’s certainly not from the Academy Awards Committee I can tell you!

This is an obviously low budget affair so you can forgive some of its shortcomings, but not enough happens to justify even its skinny 74 minutes run time. The first ten minutes were promising but it soon descended into a predictable ‘one wild night’ story that wasn’t particularly wild or memorable. No one had a story arc to speak of and it came across as just a bunch or random stuff that happened and that’s it.

The only memorable scene was Tyres taking down some neds in a kebab shop and possibly Warwick Davis’ secretary riding a young man to destruction with her party frock on. The two leads have been on ‘Skins’ which I’m not familiar with but at least they had the man who liked strawberry jam out of ‘Sex Lives of the Potato Men’ to keep me somewhat amused.

Overall this looked like a film school project bolstered by a couple of familiar faces from the D list. It wasn’t terrible but it also had nothing whatsoever to recommend it.

Best Bit : Kebab Shop Kafuffle  ‘W’ Rating 9/23

No.224 : What’s the Worst That Could Happen? (2001)

What’s the Worst That Could Happen? at the IMDb

 What’s the Worst That Could Happen? Well making a sequel to this piece of garbage springs to mind. If that comment seems somewhat predictable I can only say, in my defence, that the film started it.

The frankly never funny Martin Lawrence stars as Kevin, a career thief who scouts auctions for information and potential targets. He scores points off an appraiser by telling her that both her designer glasses and star lot are fakes before taking his wisdom to the auction itself. He spots a pretty girl and, on learning that she is selling a treasured painting to pay her bills steals it from the winning bidder. He then returns it to the lady before receiving some sexy payment in return.

At this early stage the moral compass of the film is set when he tells the lady in a post coital chat that he stole the painting and she thinks he’s a stand up guy for doing so. In a world where black people are often stereotyped as thieves and robbers this is dubious at best especially as every black character in the film has similar moral values ; but he makes wisecracks so that’s OK.

Time passes and Kevin and his acting talent free squeeze have moved in together. He has not done any stealing for a while much to the chagrin of his fence, the late Bernie Mac. His pal John Leguizamo tells him about an easy score at Danny DeVito’s house but this soon goes awry and DeVito takes from him his lucky ring that the new girlfriend gave him. The rest of the film takes up the pointless cat and mouse chase as Kevin and DeVito try to outsmart each other to get the ring and stay ahead of flamboyant police Detective William Finchner

This has to be the worst film I have seen in a long time. It is clearly made for morons with pratfalls and the most obvious gags you have ever seen. For example that ancient one where he says ‘There’s no way you are coming on this trip’ just before a cut to a scene where they are on that trip - yeah that’s there. You also get the slackest, most improbable plot allied with characters who have motivations that defy belief. If DeVito is this mega-businessman answering to Senate committees why is he squabbling with a house breaker? Don’t there guys have people to take care of that kind of thing?

Still to get bogged down in semantics does this film a service it doesn’t deserve. It is unfunny, poorly plotted, terribly scripted and downright offensive - why is it acceptable to dress up as Arabs and do funny voices? The tea towel on the head went out in the 1970’s!

The only mild amusement for me, apart from seeing name actors making a fool of themselves, was the funny sign language interpreter and that was stolen wholesale form ‘Airplane!’.

The end kind of summed up the whole enterprise for me when Lawrence appeared in an outsized afro wig and said ‘I’m a black male, not a blackmailer’. Yes, it was that terrible.

‘W’ Score 3/23
Best Bit : ‘The End’

No.223 : Wild Horses (2015)

Wild Horses at the IMDb

 Robert Duvall wrote, directed and starred in this contemporary western and had his wife cast in the lead - so is this a showcase for his undoubted skills or a dull vanity project that merits its IMDb score of 4/10?

Duvall plays an ageing Texan rancher who bears the weight of secrets of the past. His gay son’s lover disappeared 15 years previously and a new lady Texas Ranger is keen to reopen the case. What she unearths starts other family skeletons to be rattled from the closet and something has to give.

The film opens in flashback and we’re not clear how the boy died, only that Duvall was there at the time. An undercurrent runs throughout the film that he may have been killed die to redneck intolerances to homosexuality but they seemed keen to skirt round the issue with only passing references to James Franco’s character being gay, and there weren’t any love scenes for him or discussions on his situation. It did shine through that Duvall was the screenwriter as it almost seemed like an old fashioned ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ when the film was crying out for the prejudices to be explored. Still he did duff up some homophobes in a bar, so that’s all right then.

Duvall’s wife Luciana isn’t convincing as the no-nonsense Ranger who smells a Duvall shaped rat and sets her sights on him. English clearly isn’t her first language and her delivery is one note and emotion free. She does get a couple of action scenes, including a low rent car chase, but her part is thin. Her deductions don’t always ring true, but to be fair she says hello to Duvall and straight away he has the hit men on her - not exactly the subtle approach!

Other plot threads that get exposed but not necessarily resolved include corrupt policeman who are dealing drugs with border crossing Mexicans and the paternity of their Mexican looking friend who has lived with them for years but definitely not the result of Duvall getting jiggy with the staff.

The cast was impressive but they get nothing much to do. Josh Hartnett is wasted as the second son and I find it hard to remember any meaningful scene he took part in. The usually good James Franco has nothing to work with in what should have been a good and conflicted character. He seemed nonplussed at his boyfriend disappearing and his reaction at the eventual resolution was muted at best.

I didn’t buy into the dialogue either with lots of improbably moving and articulate speeches being utter by characters who were meant to be red necks or 'good old boy' type farmhands. Duvall talks real slow, as is his way, but he lacked the gravitas and deep rooted resentment that his character was supposed to demonstrate.

Overall this was a wasted opportunity. They had a great cast and locations and a potentially interesting plot, but what was delivered was a flat and wordy borefest that I’ve largely forgotten already.

‘W’ Score - 10/23
Best Bit - Rednecks don’t read the script and start a bar fight

No.220 - Wolfcop (2014)

Wolfcop at the IMDb

I wasn't expecting much from ‘Wolfcop’ and in that regard at least I wasn't disappointed.

It certainly does what it says on the tin in that it has a cop who is also a wolf - what surprised me was that the cop/wolf actually kept up with its law enforcement duties. Can’t fault the commitment to the job there, Officer.

Our hero is Lou, played with scuzzy understatement by Leo Fafard, who is an under-performing policeman in a small town. He’s an alcoholic and ignores various small crimes such as vandalism as he makes his way to the police station. He has his boss on his back but has an able co-worker in Tina, who wins the employee of the month prize every time.

The towns is in the midst of a mayoral election and the annual ‘Hunt and Drink’ day is coming up. Lou does as little work as possible and spends his day getting drunk with a barmaid and his loser pal. Things change however when he wakes up with a pentangle carved into his chest and he is unable to shave due to immediate hair regrowth. He scratches his hairy chin and remembers flashes of creeps in monk habits carving the pentangle on him whilst another chap is scarified.

We soon learn that the victim is a candidate for mayor giving the incumbent no challengers to returning to the office and the excuse to cancel the Hunt and Drink day which coincides with a solar eclipse which strangely happenes every 32 years. Lou does some research and learns that by having a sacrifice a group of shape shifters can regenerate for another 32 years if they drink the blood of a werewolf during the eclipse. You can't argue with science like that!

Lou confides in his friend who locks him in a cell to witness the transformation and unusually Lou, despite a wolfy appearance, decides to put on his uniform and modify his police car before going on patrol. As the full moon  and eclipse move closer Lou has to keep a watch on who are his friends and who are the shape shifters. Can the curse be broken and will Lou find redemption after years of mourning his dead father?

This is a strange sort of film - It doesn't take itself seriously and there is a lot of gore but it is also played for laughs as well as drama. Just when you think it’s going down a familiar path Lou gets out his angle grinder in full werewolf mode and starts to customise his patrol car with big ‘W’s - possibly in tribute to this blog, it isn't clear.

The shifts in tone are a bit jarring but if you are watching a film called ‘Wolfcop’ you can hardly complain. The special effects were half decent with plenty of glycerine used for the transformation scene. There are also a couple of gruesome deaths and I especially likes a skull revealing ‘face off’ moment.

At a trim 79 minutes the film doesn't outstay its welcome but by the same measure you aren't baying for more. The thin plot played out satisfactorily and the cast mostly did well with some preposterous dialogue. The exception would be the bad guy leader who had a tear tattoo and no menace whatsoever.

I'm not inclined to hunt down the sequel promised in the credits but there are worse ways of spending an hour or so on Netflix.

Best Bit : face off in the corner
‘W’ Score 15/23

No.219 : Woman on the Run (1950)

Woman on the Run at the IMDb

First off, this film’s title is a complete misnomer. If you want to watch a woman on the run, look elsewhere. It’s the husband who is on the run, the wife is merely looking for him. ‘Woman Looking For Her Husband Who is on the Run’ should have been the title even if it is less exciting.

The film opens with Frank Johnston out walking his dog when he chances upon a man being shot in his car. We don’t know if it’s a robbery or extreme dogging at first, but the victim takes two in the belly for his trouble. Frank sees the whole thing and unfortunately catches the attention of the killer who pops two slugs straight into Frank’s head for being so nosy. Thankfully it was the shadow of Frank’s head that took the bullets, but that’s one shadow that will tell no tales.

Rather than do the sensible thing of running away Frank tells the cops he saw the whole event. It turns out that the victim was a witness against a major bad guy but all is not lost - Frank can take over as the bullet magnet and testify against the villain for this new crime. Understandably Frank gets cold feet and buggers off as soon as he can.

The cops aren't happy and head to Frank’s home where they meet his bitch of a wife, Eleanor. She couldn't give two shits about Frank’s predicament as the marriage is on the rocks. She shows the cops Frank’s paintings and generally runs him down. She softens however when a reporter shows up and offers some big bucks if she can help trace the fleeing Frank and get him the exclusive story. But wait! That ‘reporter’ looks a lot like the gunman - well he is one and the same after all.

Eleanor gets a cryptic message from Frank and she and the reporter follow the clues about town. Over the course of their travels she finds details about how much Frank really loves her and that he has a heart condition, that he’s kept secret from her. As she starts to doubt the reporter’s credentials can Eleanor has to find a way to get Frank's Heart medicine to him while also keeping the bad guy from silencing her man, whom she now loves after all?

This was a pretty decent ‘B’ movie with not a lot invested in sets or action but enough happens to keep you interested. Top billing goes to Ann Sheridan as Eleanor but she wasn't too convincing as the scornful wife who went all doe eyed after seeing a couple of portraits and hearing the medical news - Frank must have some decent life insurance tucked away!

The bad guy masquerading as a reporter was a lot more likeable and I was hoping he’d get away after rubbing out wet fish Frank - fat chance. The clues and deduction were well handled and the drip feed of information kept the level of interest up. The showdown at the fairground went as you’d imagine, but it was a decent ride to get there.

To be fair Eleanor does break into a slight trot at some points to justify the ‘On the run’ title but a better title couldn't have been that hard to find - maybe ladies running was what brought the punters in in the 1950’s? Anyway this is  a decent offering that although ‘by the numbers’ had enough to justify the viewing.

Best Bit - Your second ride is half price!
‘W’ Score 15/23

No.217 : Werewolf in a Girls’ Dormitory (1961)

Werewolf in a Girls' Dormitory at the IMDb

Sometimes a fish jumps into your boat and there’s no way a film with a title like this will let down the expectant viewer... What? 1961, no grisly deaths or bad girls frolicking in the shower? Oh well…

This black and white ‘classic’ has a few other names like ‘The Ghoul in the School’ which is certainly more apt given that no werewolf of any accepted form is even sighted. Hairy hands don’t count.

The film is set in a girls reform school. They are all bad ladies but are also all attractive and have perfect figures - ‘Orange is the New Black’ this is not. We meet the girls as they do their exercises in the most buttoned up gear you can imagine. They are distracted by the arrival of a new teacher and one fakes a faint to grab this hunk’s attention. Alas he has a date with the headmaster where we learn he has a secret past the prevents him working as a doctor - here he has to be a professor.

The girls don’t get up to much in the way of horseplay - no naked pillow fights for example - but they do put it about somewhat with the locals much to the excitement of the Peter Lorre-esque maintenance man, Walter. One especially slutty girl - we get a flash of leg - Mary, breaks curfew and meets a local worthy whom she is blackmailing. Her plan goes south when she gets attacked by a pair of hairy hands. We don’t know to whom they belong but she gets slashed to death for her trouble - almost loses her top button too - phew!

The death upsets the headmaster somewhat but not as much as you’d think. Various candidates for the wolfy one are rolled out with the new professor the most likey - so it won’t be him then. Foxy Priscilla starts her own investigation but nearly comes a cropper when she is attacked by the wolf man in all his glory. It’s just a man in a suit with some fur stuck to his face but after an hour of boredom we’ll take what we get. Luckilly Pricsilla is saved by a dog named ‘Wolf’ which is plain confusing. Wolf gets a bite on the wolfman’s arm so the search is on for someone with a sore arm - like the Professor!

Things rumble on with a couple of suspects ruled out before the big reveal. Can the ladies be saved from the hairy handed one and will it be who we think? (Yes).

Given this was made in 1961 I had no expectation that this would be a sexy gorefest but it was tamer than a Tom and Jerry cartoon with the frying pans removed. It is well shot with the classy bad girls nice to look at, although hardly convincing as a bunch of reprobates.

They make absolutely no attempt at a transformation although they do one in reverse which was like some play-doh being lifted off in slow motion. There was very little blood on show and even less flesh - I believe I mentioned? It was however decent fun with some broadly drawn characters trying to outdo each other in the badly dubbed stakes.

Overall it’s a narrow pass but they need to watch about that flagrant false advertising - I mean the ‘werewolf’ never even made it into the dorm!

Best Bit - Wolf saves the day
‘W’ Rating - 12/23

No.188 : Waterloo Road (1945)

Waterloo Road at the IMDb

No, it’s not the BBC yoof soap, what we have here is the black and white 1945 war time kitchen sink drama.

It’s the time of the Blitz and local doctor Alistair Sim has a part time job book ending the film with his wise words and inner monologue. He buys a toy train for a young child and his mind wanders off as we drift into the film proper.

An East end family is making do with the lodger trying to get his breakfast as the family all squabble. The pretty but dim daughter is under fire as she’s walking out with local spiv Stewart Granger, despite being married to John Mills who’s off fighting the war. A busybody sister writes to Mills telling him about the slattern’s antics and soon the squaddie is AWOL and seeking to sort things out.

Mills has several adventures as he has to evade the military police and fate intervenes as she slips out of his hands on several occasions as she sees the town in the company of the spiv. Mills also enlists the help of a fellow deserter and uses his wiles and fighting skills to evade capture.

Eventually as the bombs start to fall the spiv gets the girl in his lair as Mills is tipped off by the doctor as to their whereabouts. Can he stop his girl giving up the goods to the douche layabout and will the toy train recipient be a surprise to anyone?

I really liked this brief slice of 1940’s life. There was certainly no attempt to glamorise our brave boys fighting the war as most we met were on the run or up to some illegal antics. I’m sure this was a tonic to the home front as the stiff upper lip was replaced by a cockney sparrow who was as quick with his fists as he was with his wits.

There were plenty of laughs and I liked the scene where the MPs raid the dance hall looking for deserters. Our hero heads for the toilet only to find a queue waiting to escape out of the window! The action all takes over the place of a day and you can’t say much was invested in the plot which was basically an hour of a manhunt before a ten minute punch up where the baddie gets his just desserts. The characters are great however with Stewart Granger doing well in the thankless role of the gadabout trying to deflower the lonely wife. John Mills is fine as the small but wiry squaddie and there are plenty of great characters showing up to raise a smile.

I was less impressed with the prick tease wife who seemed a bit wet to be getting all the frenetic attention she enjoyed. At the end things all got sorted out neatly and although the blitz scenes were mainly stock footage it didn’t detract from a good knockabout drama that had more laughs than most comedies.

Best Bit : Punch Up!
W Score 18/23

No.183 : World Gone Wild (1987)

World Gone Wild at the IMDb

Well here’s a first for the 100+ W Movies Quest - no not a reader, although that’d be nice - an actual request. OK it was a request borne out of vanity as the person making the request only did so as he almost shares the name of one of the characters, but we’ll take what we can get.

This dystopian action thriller is absolutely dreadful and I doubt you’d be able to find it anywhere apart from my hard drive and numerous land fill sites - but let’s have a look anyway.

The film opens with some scene setting narration. The production evidently didn’t have the cash for a scrolling paragraph so instead poor old Bruce Dern is tasked with setting the scene. It’s the late 21st century and a 75 year war has left most people dead and it hasn’t rained in 50 years. Realising their shaky premise and the abundance of clouds in the film, they add in ‘cruelly there are clouds but no rain’ - you can’t fault science like that.

After a dreadfully tacky credits sequence with the cheapest TV movie graphics and over filtered colours we get to the nub of the action. The writer has seen ‘Mad Max 2’ and thought ‘Yeah no one will notice if I steal that’ so he sets us up in a remote compound filled with people in white clothes and hair bands. He cleverly substitutes the rare resource from gasoline to water to make it all original. Anyway the school only has four books, so at least it’s an improvement from today’s education cuts - little bit of politics there, and the kids have no pencils and a teacher lacking most of her clothes.

The lesson on etiquette is interrupted when Adam Ant appears, towed by cape wearing lackeys, resplendent in his flying goggles and in a hollowed out helicopter. I ‘d say ‘you couldn’t make it up’ but clearly someone has - drugs really screw you up. Ant is playing the ridiculously named ‘Derek Abernathy’ and after spouting a lot of shite for five minutes starts shooting up all the peaceful locals along with his dead eyed henchmen. Total carnage is averted when Bruce Dern turns up and kills a bad guy by booting a hubcap into his throat - clearly he’s not a man to be messed with.

Ant crawls off with some of the settlement’s young men (Operation Yew Tree?) to brainwash them into his cult, yes that's cult, while those who remain take stock and fix their hair. They know Ant will be back and Dern sets off to town for reinforcements. The town is a hell hole with women in basques running about while dying babies are denied water. Sounds like my kinda town! After some recruiting of colourful sidekicks Dern returns to fortify the settlement and wait Ant’s next attack. Can the mismatched gang of renegades and mercenaries take on Ant’s formation bike riding team of white clad brainwashed youths? Will the inevitable explosions kick start the environment? Hell yes!

This blog has been guilty of exaggerating the awfulness of many films but I defy anyone to see this and declare it even a partial success. Well OK, pished up students may be able to laugh ironically at the many plot holes, dreadful acting and atrocious dialogue, but we’re a bit higher brow at this blog.

For a start where, in a world with no rain for 50 years, do they find an endless supply of brilliant white clothes, never mind endless bullets and enough TNT to make 9/11 look like a box of Aldi fireworks? For a world scrabbling in the dirt to survive everyone looks well nourished and there is frankly an over abundance of motorcycles and capes.

OK, we can set these gripes aside, as long as the cast is strong and the plot is tight and coherent. Er, sorry. Ant fails to stand and deliver in the acting stakes and it is baffling how he managed to get through the audition. To be fair in a film where “Does Pinocchio have a wooden dick?” is the best line, the standards were never going to be high. Bruce Dern fails to deliver his usual mania and he seems largely disinterested in a film that doubtlessly looked more fun in the script than in reality.

The gang of misfits were uniformly dreadful from ‘Nitro’ the dynamite expert to some other guy who created a ‘snake pit’ trap with precisely 4 small snakes in it - at least they squashed them together for the close up
shot - Indiana Jones this was not.

The plot was virtually non-existent and they even had two goes at the finale both of which failed to elicit any excitement or tension. Ant had one of the lowest key demises of any movie baddie despite being seemingly bullet proof for the first 90 minutes. The big conclusion was ridiculous as it was predictable and frankly if the new rains had washed this effort out of existence no one would be complaining. Well apart from Mr Abernethy at any rate…

W Rating 6/23
Best Bit - Ant ain't no Goody Two Shoes

No.182 : Welcome to the Punch (2013)

Welcome to the Punch at the IMDb

Another page from Alan Partridge’s book of ‘Bad Slags’ now as we pick through this British cops v robbers action and swearing fest.

The film opens with a daring bank raid. It’s daring because all the bad guys are wearing suits and escape as a motorcycle formation team. The only cop in town is James McAvoy who has a shiny car and no back up. He’s ordered not to pursue but we know he’s reckless, er a maverick, from the off as he disregards the stuffed shirts at HQ and goes after the bad guys. Clearly Health and Safety called this one right as after a minor kafuffle McAvoy is shot in the leg and the bad guys get away.

We fast forward a couple of years and, although still a cop, McAvoy is bitter and forced to syringe out fluid from his still painful leg wound. He’s still bitching at his superiors, one of whom is that annoying one out of all these type of films and the other the Governor out of ‘The Walking Dead’ who has political ambitions. We learn that the leader of the robbers was Jacob Sternwood who not only has a tough name, he’s tough as well.

The bad man has gone to ground but the cops fancy their chances of a collar when they pick up Sternwood’s son on an unrelated offence. What follows is a predictable game of cat and mouse as the gangster heads back to the smoke to rescue his kid while McAvoy tries to remember to limp and look tough despite a weak beard.

This film wasn’t as terrible as I anticipated but it was still pretty poor. Of course it’s easy to pick nits, so let’s do that then.

McAvoy may now have the leading man status to open a film but he didn’t convince as the haunted copper with a score to settle. He may have been shown a couple of gun drills but his running about and swearing while offering his piece was more laughable than threatening. Better was Mark Strong as the villain but he’s had plenty of practice -  see ‘The Guard’ ‘Kick-Ass’ etc. He certainly topped McAvoy in the acting stakes but even he floundered with some hokey dialogue and ridiculous plot twists.

Down the list you also get Peter Mullen doing what he does and a disinterested David Thewlis as the aspirational politician who’s plan to shoot up London to win votes and lucrative contracts was ill conceived at best. The lead lady was a bit plain and her habit of writing stuff on her hands had her fate signalled from the off - guess where the killer clue is found?

The story was overly complicated and too reliant of coincidence and lucky timing. At the end McAvoy has a long speech where he explains the plot along with flashbacks and I was still a bit puzzled. Some of it didn’t even make sense - Britain’s most wanted escapes from his Icelandic lair, kills plenty, and then jets straight into the heart of London without a second glance. He also manages to meet all his old contacts and wanders in and out of various crimes scenes with no questions asked.

The big showdown where the two arch enemies forge an uneasy alliance was so much horse shit, but at least it did let a few extras get shot up. The production was quite lavish for a British film but it had so many ‘London at Night’ establishing shots you’d think the whole thing was bankrolled by the tourist board - well maybe if every person in Britain wasn’t shown as a total murdering psycho you might.

Overall the film was like a lavish episode of ‘The Sweeney’ and it was certainly better than the recent remake film of that series. Part of the fun is spotting all the actors they found sitting about in the Garrick Club and shoved on screen for five minutes. The violence was moderate with nothing too graphic despite ten million bullets being shot off in the name of entertainment. Worth a look but only a passing one as you skip past it on Channel 5 in a couple of years time.

W Score 12/23  Best Bit - Storage wars Writ Large

No.176 : White Noise (2005)

White Noise at the IMDb

If you think our TV is bad you should see Michael Keaton’s local TV station - nothing but static 24 hours a day. Still beats ‘The X-Factor’ I guess.

Keaton plays Jonathan Rivers, a successful architect with a pretty author wife. He has an unnecessarily complicated marital situation with an unfeasible young ex-wife but I guess this was used so that his annoying child didn’t have to be there all the time.

Anyway, the wife reveals she’s up the duff and her book is about to be published these happy news items can only mean one thing - immediate death! True enough, after a late night waiting up for the wayward wife Keaton finds that her car has been found missing and she is presumed drowned in the river - Rivers by name… After a few days of unconvincing worry he heads back to work but spots fatty Ian McNeice trailing him - maybe he dropped some do-nuts - it isn’t made clear.

He confronts the slobby stalker only to be told the wife is dead and he has messages from the other side. Keaton clearly hasn’t read the script and tells him to bugger off but soon after the cops turn up with the body. We flash-forward six months and Michael is trying to make a new start. He is still hearing the static however and rather than bin the nylon shirts he heads over to McNiece’s house - and doesn’t even take a pie.

McNiece reveals what we the viewer already know that dead people can communicate using the medium of static - well we did get to see the trailer. The slovenly psychic plays Keaton a few crackly snippets that convince him so much that he’s soon using a Dixon’s gold card to fit out his house with a state of the art static observation unit. He also meets a fellow mourner who vouches for the obese occultist as he managed to find some crackles that sounded like someone she once knew.

Things develop quickly as every video tape reveals a new secret and sends Keaton across town to save some lives. He guesses his dead wife is directing him to people who are soon to die in the hope he can save them from their fate. This meddling doesn’t go unnoticed however and, despite being warned off by the world’s only genuine psychic, Keaton ploughs on. He better watch those three ominous shadows in the playback - they could develop in to some unconvincing CGI is he’s not careful!

‘White Noise’ is a decent high concept effort but essentially it’s just an updating of the ‘meddling with the Ouija board’ ‘B’ movie. Keaton has little charisma and his descent from loving husband to grieving widower to obsessed researcher barely lifts an eyebrow.

There were some interesting touches but no real scares and it was only the wait for the big reveal, that made no sense, that kept me watching. The constant hissing of the static screens was most annoying and I barely got beyond the opening credits due to this. The effects were poorly rendered with the three bogeymen looking about as threatening as a Bee-Gees reunion - there again…

The big showdown at the end upped the pace somewhat but I don’t think the outcome was earned with a tragic sacrifice looking more like a irresponsible wet floor. The full manifestations of the static was not explained and the bad guy was so unexpected a flashback was needed so we could say ‘oh it was that guy’.

The film had a couple of scares and some uncomfortable scenes but all in all it was a forgettable piece of undemanding trash that looks as dated as Keaton’s collection of VHS tapes.

Best Bit - Gonna have trouble getting those jeans off.
‘W’ Score 10/23

No.173 : War of the Dead (2011)

War of the Dead at the IMDb

When the two most recognisable faces in a production are refugees from ‘The Bill’ you could be forgiven for assuming the result may not be at the high end of the quality scale. We at the ‘W’ blog would never make such an assumption, and will scrutinise each detail closely before declaring the film ‘shit‘.

Well it is. The IMDb summary suggests it was filmed in 2008 but hung about like a rotting zombie for two years before being excreted by the studio. Should they have bothered? Let’s see…

The film is set in the Second World War. We get the unsettling camera and industrial lighting that screams either disorientation or ‘we can’t afford a tripod’. A group of Russian soldiers are being led down a corridor in an underground base. There is a confusing bit of gunplay but eventually one Russian makes it to the door where he is met by some men in lab coats. Maybe they had arrived to cart the producer off in a small white van - it isn’t clear.

Anyway, they hook the Russian up to some apparatus and after a while his eyes go black, which signifies they found the contact lenses in time. We then cut to a caption - everything on a caption must be true - which states the Germans are doing experiments on Russians to stop death or something and Finnish and American soldiers are charged with having a look. It’s not clear why the Americans are involved but I’m guessing they had the uniforms and the guy from ‘The Bill’ couldn’t do a Finnish accent.

The unit makes its way towards the not so secret bunker and encounters some heavy resistance. This cuts the bill for extras drastically and we are left with half a dozen or so soldiers against the Nazi/Commie zombie army. The guys make some headway and capture a young Russian in a World war One trench set that they forgot to clear away after another, probably better, film was shot.

The Russian tells them some exposition stuff and they get to a small cottage that has a convenient big car - right in the woods too - fancy that. Anyway lots of zombified troops appear. I say lots, but it’s about 5. Luckily they don’t stay dead so they keep popping up which saves on extras and on continuity as they don’t have to worry about where the bodies should be. After a few skirmishes the guys make good use of the props budget and drive about in the big car for a while as some zombies jump on and off it. It literally travels at 5mph and one guys says ‘my granny could walk faster than this’ - quite.

Things progress slowly but after a fallen comrade reappears as a zombie and they discover the old ‘headshot’ rule the guys finally arrive at the bunker. Can they stop the source and waste the stockpile of the Nazi zombies? Will there be enough time for some noble sacrifice and heartbreaking loss? Can those same five extras get up once more before the CGI planes begin their bombing run? Of course they can!

I can safely say that you’d be hard pushed to find a worse film than ‘War of the Dead’ even in the cluttered zombie genre. Of course every cliché is carefully mined and exploited, you expect that, but this effort goes the extra mile in terms of hammy acting and stilted dialogue.

These failures can be forgiven if you get some kick ass action, but alas no - these must be the bluntest toothed zombies ever - but at least they are persistent, those uniforms must have looked like sieves by the time they were returned to the costumers.

The dreadful acting was cringeworthy stuff with the ‘American’ the worst of a terrible pile. Every face was a grimace and every line spat out like he had piles. The villains, as they were, were poor with some proto-Nemesises ripped straight off from ‘Resident Evil’ the only splash of colour. They were rubbish too - who ever heard of a super powered zombie losing a fist fight?

Even the basics like the uniforms and gun drills were shoddy- I’m no expert but I’m pretty sure you don’t fire a sub-machine gun holding the magazine, side on, gangsta style.

Anyway to split hairs is to suggest that the film may have treaded a line between piss-poor and passable but it didn’t, it was crap.

THE Tag Line - This Film is Rubbish, This Much is True  7/23

No.172 : Wild Stallion (1952)

Wild Stallion at the IMDb

Another crappy 1950’s western now - we really need to upgrade our movie package here at the 100+ W Movies Quest - TCM seems to have no end of these ‘classics’.

Wild Stallion is mercifully short at 70 minutes, but they are long, long minutes.

We open as a cavalry post is being decommissioned. A fat, wise old soldier is packing up the stables as an eager new recruit asks about the old white horse. ‘Thank God you asked’ the old man probably thought as we wouldn’t have a film otherwise. We quickly dissolve to a homestead in the old west, 32 years earlier. The pioneer Maw and Paw barely get a chance to wonder when Dan will be back from the fishing hole before they are dispatched by some sharp shootin’ injuns. These guys fire one bullet and one arrow and score two kills - that’s how the west might have been won! In the low key melee a young white colt escapes - remember him for the next paragraph! The injuns torch the homestead and make off just as young Dan appears with the fish dinner.

Alas his acting range can’t convey the trauma, so he just gets on with burying his folks. He manages to plant his oversized parents without getting his hands dirty, just as a helpful stranger appears. He gives a master class in name carving before dropping the boy off at the cavalry’s military school. Things morph into his teenage years as he and the helpful stranger team up to capture wild horses for the cavalry. Dan has never forgotten his lost white colt, ‘Top Kick’, and near wets his pants as he spots his erstwhile steed.

Top Kick is the leader of a big herd of wild horses and although our man gets a rope on it, it soon escapes his frankly creepy clutches. Over the next few years our man busies himself by fighting with the cavalry’s bully boy horse trainer and in pretending to be interested in the token lady, who does nothing but simper and  look desperately for a husband.

After even more dull related horse antics, including one where Top Kick facilitates a horse jailbreak, he and our man are eventually tamed for a life in the military and with a beard wife.

We dissolve back to the old army man who is telling the tale and are meant to be surprised when we learn that the man running the post is actually our man Dan. We also get the joyous news that rather than heading  for the Tesco burger factory, Top Kick is off to San Francisco for retirement - wonder why our butch hero chose there?

Although it’s easy to tear strips off this film it has no pretensions and is simply a ‘Boys’ Own’ style adventure yarn. Any prospect of drama and suspense is lost from the beginning with the narrative all told in flashback. The surprise ending is nothing of the kind and it gets worse when our hero takes the old man along too - he thought he was for the old folks’ home!

As is often the case with melodrama like this the score is really booming and invasive, and there is no attempt at characterisation - it’s all boo-hiss - hoo-ray - boooo! The Indians get a bad press, as ever, with them randomly shooting folk and setting fire to stuff for no ideological reason that the film makers address. The plot, although slight, is ridiculous with our hero delivering his catchphrase ‘It’s MY horse’ with monotone dullness and regularity. The horse looks like it’s on day leave from the circus with its flowing mane and perfect timing - hardly a ‘wild stallion’

You can see this playing well in a 1950s Saturday matinee but for me it was a dreadful throwback, with wooden acting and stilted dialogue. Throw in an unlikable lead and a charisma free horse and you’ve got the longest 70 minutes you’ll ever endure. Where’s the Tesco value range when you need it?

Best Bit : My, Top Kick is a boy horse isn’t he?
W rating 6/23

No.171 : Wichita (1955)

Wichita on IMDb

Off to the wild west now, or rather the ‘mild’ west as there’s not a drop of blood or even any cussing in this strait-laced affair.

We open as some cattle drovers settle down for the night with some beans and possibly gay sex. Their plans, whatever they may be, are interrupted when they spot a stranger on the horizon. They give him a cautious welcome and it turns out he’s Wyatt Earp. Although the aging actor playing him, Joel McCrea, is already 50 no one knows who he is - better get a move on Gramps or they’ll need to install a stair lift by the time you get to the OK Corral!

They bed down for the night and soon two drovers approach Earp’s bed - maybe his red shirt and neckerchief was a signal? but no! They're after his cash. They get hold of his fat bank roll but Earp is wise to the game and after recovering his cash he punches the miscreants out. He heads off to Wichita with his dreams of opening a hardware shop intact. The drovers lick their wounds safe in the knowledge that they’ll be in Wichita soon themselves, and may get their chance at some revenge.

Earp hits town and wins favour with the mayor as his plans don’t involve opening another bar - Kavos this ain't. He goes to the bank and is able to thwart the tamest robbery attempt you’ll ever see, with robbers who look more like Sunday School teachers than brigands. The mayor immediately offers Earp the job of Marshall but our man is determined to sell his buckets, goddarn it!

Fate naturally takes control however when the pished up drovers enter the town and start grappling with some overdressed whores and shooting off their pistols. A hooker and then, seemingly more importantly, a young boy get shot by stray bullets and the even mild mannered Earp has had enough. He grabs the Marshall’s badge and a shotgun and kicks some ass. Well he politely asks them to stop, if it wouldn't be too much trouble.

Now mad with power Earp bans all guns from the town much to the chagrin of local worthy Doc Black who hires two guns to take out this meddlesome Marshall. But D’oh! He’s only hired Earp’s own brothers and gets run out of town for his bother. While all this non-killing is going on Earp finds the time to picnic with a local lass half his age. Tragedy looms however when the evil Doc returns and shoots Earp’s girl’s mother. Earp feigns anger and sets out in pursuit. Can he bring the villains to justice and ride off into the sunset with his gal?

This is definitely a film of its time with nothing remotely offensive or even slightly troubling going on. The biggest crime is the shooting of the boy, who frankly deserved it for his terrible ‘Oh I'm shot' acting. It was so bad it was only beaten by the leg shaking wackiness of Lloyd Bridges in his big shoot out scene. The whores showed nothing and the drunken drovers are so disinterested, even after six month’s abstinence, that they’d rather go about shooting their guns than getting to grips with the painted ladies.

The script is dire with every western cliché present and correct. The baddies literally wear black hats as if we’d mistake our clean cut hero for any of those less than menacing characters. The romance aspect looked tacked on with ‘do you want to go on a picnic’ seemingly shorthand for ‘let’s get it on’. Of course a small peck is followed by asking permission to be married - remember that kids!

The action scenes were dreadful with our man never missing a shot and the bad guys only chalking up one whore’s arm and a 5 year old in return for 10,000 rounds fired.

Of course the film was made for more innocent times, and no doubt some people gasped when the villain twirled his moustache, but nowadays it just looks like a funny throwback to a more naive and gentle period when the good guys won and the bad guys got their just desserts.

Best Bit : "The boy’s name was Michael Jackson - he was 5 years old" - Ow!

W Score 11/23

No.169 : Werewolf : The Beast Among Us (2012)

Werewolf : The Beast Among Us on IMDb

Another ‘DVD Premiere’ bit of crap now as the ‘W Movie’ quest once again braves these films, so you don’t have to.

This effort is set in a steam punk version of 19th century eastern Europe. We open with a remote shack occupied by an excitable family. Pop locks all the doors and refuses to open even when a scantily clad lady appears. That’s how he rolls then. His caution is well founded as she turns into a crappy CGI werewolf and starts to work on his poorly pointed roof.

Dad gives his son a wolf amulet before the beast gets in and makes mincemeat of Mom and Pop. The boy offers the amulet up and the wolf stops dead - fatal mistake - as this is the only rural shack with a rope hung chandelier. The boy escapes as the wolf fries and we hope all will be well and over soon. Fat chance!

We flash forward and the boy, identified by the amulet, is a grown man with a swashbuckling dress sense and a posse of heavily armed compadres. They tour about the towns eliminating their wolf issues for a fee. His henchmen are a seemingly colourful bunch but are in fact anonymous ass-holes with gimmicks like flamethrowers and eye patches. Our hero’s main pal is a Hugh Jackman wannabe who thinks he is dashing with his waistcoat full of knives, but in reality is the biggest tit in the production; which is some going.

They arrive in a wolf plagued town and try to suss out who is doing all the killing of mainly hookers and tramps - did they think to investigate the local conservative party? After some laughable misfires, including one where an epileptic condemns a room of men to death when he has a fit, the most obvious suspect is identified.

Can our heroes stop the bloodshed or will the vested interests within the town threaten their plans? Can the CGI get any worse and will it match the dreadful dialogue and shocking acting? Rest easy dear reader, all these and less will arrive in buckets.

This film is so terrible you’d think they set out to do a ‘it’s so bad it’s funny’ production but it’s played straight and straight to video it went.

A werewolf film will always hang on its transformation scenes and these are the worst I’ve seen. At least when it’s a mask and gloves you can understand the budget limitations but here you have a cartoon wolf that isn’t even anatomically correct, prancing about as the locals feign terror. They had one decent set up when the suspect was strung up as the full moon appeared - great opportunity to profile some kick ass special effects you may think? No chance, he turns into a Day 1 of remedial CGI school reject blob and bounds off as the villagers stand back - no doubt in abject embarrassment.

The actors are dreadful from the hammy and charmless Hugh Jackman look-not-a-like to poor old Stephen Rea who really needs a harsh word with his agent. As the diabolical ‘Doc’ he is about as convincing as the wolf, although he is signalling ‘I’m doing for the cash’ throughout. We also get Nia Peebles last seen in ‘Blues Brothers 2000’, who for some reason is wearing a flamenco dress, even to the wolf hanging.

The plot, as it is, is predictable and dull and there are no surprises whatsoever - apart from me seeing it through to the end that is. As you’d probably have gathered I didn’t enjoy this at all and the ‘W Movie Blog’ hereby announces a moratorium on all straight to DVD efforts, especially those involving werewolves.

THE Tag Line - Lacks Bite - Along With Everything Else 3/23