No. 354 : Who Is Erin Carter? (TV) (2023)

 

Who is Erin Carter at the IMDb

If you are going to give your TV series an interrogative title it would probably makes sense that you ensure that after enduring 7 episodes your audience is likely to give a shit; but I didn’t.

This by the numbers and cliché-ridden Netflix drama could be seen as a harmless pastime but the lazy writing and terrible acting made it feel like a complete waste of time.

The timeline of the series jumps around a bit but basically you have a woman living with her husband and child in Barcelona – but there are secrets! Things start to unravel when she stumbles upon a supermarket robbery and takes down one of the baddies who recognises her. We’re meant to be impressed by her fighting skills, but the bad guy goes down like he’s in the WWF and all our girl does is some high-level shoving. One robber escapes and Erin is worried her cover may be blown.

What cover you ask? Well, a long flashback shows her at police training college and quickly kicked out when she beats up an annoying fellow cadet. The predictable shady man from black ops invites her to join his division and within five minutes she’s infiltrated a gang and helping with a bullion robbery. You’d think someone with more that a week at training college would be a better option, but a quick training montage puts that concern to bed.

The robbery goes tits up with one woman bank robber seemingly getting killed leaving her annoying daughter at a loose end. Erin confirms her recruitment was a total arse up when she flees to Spain with the child and sets up a new life.

Unfortunately, the supermarket robbers, who wear the same animal masks as at the bullion robbery – they must have gotten a job lot, - know Erin was the rat in the crew and soon the mysterious ‘Mr Big’ is after her.

Fortunately, Erin has a gullible husband and a helper in the shape of Emilio, who is a cop and who is happy to get involved in Erin’s manipulative schemes. Elsewhere a local bitch is making Erin’s school teacher ambitions difficult, but fortunately local businessman Duggie Henshall is on hand to exert some influence. I don’t think Henshall ever got over being outsmarted by Supercrew in ‘Common as Muck’ as he’s absolutely dreadful here. He looks like someone reading lines in a language he doesn’t understand who’s also late for a dental appointment. It gets worse when you get the predictable big reveal!

The meagre plot is spread wafer thin over the 7 episodes with the annoying daughter’s visions and drawings of people in animal masks and her behavioural issues being a complete bore. You do get the lovely Susannah Fielding from ‘This Time’ – A-ha – but she is given precious little to do apart from being a busy body at Erin's school. 

The whole farrago is meant to be like a female Jason Bourne with our heroine displaying mad skills – in truth the fighting and action are very poor and lacks the visceral punch of those movies. There is one decent car crash, but you can tell the budget went on that as the flashback sequences in ‘England’ show a sun baked paradise where they forgot to put down road markings – a bit like Barcelona really!

Evan Amhad does OK in the lead with poor material, but she didn’t convince whatsoever as a pocket dynamo superspy with multiple layers and a complicated past. She is better than her husband Jordi however, who looks like he wandered onto set looking for a lost dog.

The whole production seems by the numbers with no doubt a Spanish language version shot at the same time. There are a lot of subtitled sequences and it looks like an international audience was the plan from the start. I’m sure this made fiscal sense for the bean counters at Netflix but the result is an unsatisfying offering that will doubtlessly play equally bad in all markets.

The finale was unsatisfying, not least because it suggests a sequel may be in the works. If you want a Lady Bourne straight from Wish.com this may be the offering that you seek, but otherwise I’d suggest the answer to the question posted by the title is ‘couldn’t care less’.

Best Bit: The police car chase was ridiculous but a good smash up at the end.

‘W’ Rating: 9/23

No.312 : Water (2019)

Water (2109) at the IMDb

You know your picture isn’t going to be of the best quality when the best credit you can find for any of the cast is something called ‘Atomic Shark’ which has a shark with a nuke on its back for the poster. In fact most of the cast don’t even have their photo on IMDb which is probably explained by the fact that none of them appear to be actors.

We open with a man getting frisky on a lounger by the pool with his lady friend at night. She asks him about leaving his wife and fortunately she can ask her herself as she’s just come home. The wife has rushed home with news of her pregnancy but when she sees the sexy goings on she grabs a knife and goes on the rampage. There is a quick cut so we don’t know what happens but the wife ends up stabbed in the pool.

The girlfriend is quite happy with this turn of events and the pair chop up the body with an axe and burn the pieces. The man, Frank, decides he might as well go for the double and kills the girlfriend too. He calls in the cops and has enough influence as a top doctor to ally any suspicions. A year passes and Frank gets a call fro the insurance company - how would he like the wife’s $11m insurance payout? He celebrates with his new girlfriend in the pool but just as she’s getting down to earning her cut both she and Frank disappear into the water.

All the while, simpleton handyman Daryl is wandering about seeing things and talking to himself. He too gets a tickle in the pool but gets out after monetarily blacking out. Time passes and a real estate agent and his girlfriend take a midnight dip they soon regret before another family move in. This chap is an English movie producer and they move in after their adopted daughter is saved from drowning in the pool by a realtor. At least that’s what they think - we get an underwater shot of a mermaid like creature rescuing the girl.

The family sense something not right about the house - mostly water based things like the shower going cold and taps turning on. Maybe it’s haunted by the ghost of Super Mario? They try an exorcism but that’s a waste of time and we have to wonder who will get dragged into the pool next and what is behind this horror? Apart from the script, acting etc.

This was an awful film with the worst acting you’ll have ever seen, as long you missed ‘Albion Market’. The cast all crash each others lines and a lot of the script looks improvised, as characters trail off without finishing their…

There is plenty of sex to spice things up with the ladies of the cast looking like a job lot form some backstreet boob implant emporium. One lady takes her top off and her boob remains in the same flattened shape as her basque top. Breath out luv and it will pop straight back out.

I’m not sure of the pool’s motivation - it was a sort of moral guardian allowing only those not getting up to hanky panky to escape its watery tendrils. No one really notices the pool based issues, especially the police who keep telling people not to leave town and that’s it. The characters tend to avoid the pool later on but this is solved by the pool’s mystical ‘drag ‘em in feature’.

There was no effort at an explanation - maybe it used to be an ancient Indian burial pool? To be fair I did have a few laughs and the cast didn’t seem to be taking it that seriously so there’s no reason for the viewer to either. The film probably just hits the required level to be deemed ‘so rubbish it’s good'. But not that good.

Best Bit : The overacting albino priest doing an exorcism ‘W’ Rating 9/23

No.235 : Wild Target (2010)

Wild Target at the IMDb

Some people say British comedies are all the same predictable rubbish and feature the same old faces. Well if it’s ‘Wild Target’ they are commenting upon it’d be hard to argue with them!

Bill Nighy plays a hit man with mother and emotional issues. He’s had a long and successful career as an assassin, which he puts down to meticulous planning and not getting emotionally involved. We can see he’s hurting as he learns French from a tape and has dinner on his own, but surely nothing can break his granite like façade?

Meanwhile free spirited Emily Blunt is organising an art scam. She has hooked poor sucker Rory Kinnear to paint her an exact copy of an old master which she will then sell to Rupert Everett having shown him the original (Rory works at the National Gallery) before switching to the fake. The plan goes well and she makes £900k but the scheme falls apart when the paint is discovered to still be wet - art forgery mistake number one, you’d think!

Anyway Rupert hires Bill to kill Emily and after following her about town for a day Bill starts to take a shine to the thieving harlot. He is however about to shoot her when a rival hit man, Rab C Nesbitt, shows up and Bill has to decide to take the contract or the girl. Things are further complicated when Ron Weasley shows up and Bill, Ron and Emily have to escape together.

The remainder of the film is more or less padding as the three unlikely bedfellows get to know each other and themselves before evil hit man, Tim from the Office, tracks them down for a final showdown.

I don’t think I cracked a smile once during this alleged comedy. I normally quite like Bill Nighy but his character here was such a cliché it was hard to care. The meticulous hit man undone by a target plot is a lot older than Bill and frankly he is getting on a bit for his romance with Emily to be believable or even seemly. She is meant to come across as a free spirited rock chick but only manages ‘shallow thieving bint who gets lots of folk killed’.

Ron’s part is pretty superfluous and although he’s meant to be the son Bill never had he’s more like the guy who can’t act who’ll bring in the Harry Potter audience. Things should have been improved by adding Tim from ‘The Office’ to the mix but he lacked the menace his character was supposed to exclude and his comedy dentures were a mistake.

The climax, which has the most blatant foreshadowing I can remember (“be careful with that gun it explodes when fired”), was terrible but at least welcome as it signalled the film was nearly done.

I wasn’t bothered by the film’s shaky moral compass, only by it’s dearth of laughs and predictable plot.

Best Bit : Bill listens to his radio set
‘W’ Score : 9/23

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. 141 : Woyzeck (1979)

Woyzeck at the IMDb

A bit more highbrow fare here at the 100+ ‘W’ Movies quest with a German language period piece directed by Werner Herzog and starring his usual favourite Klaus Kinski. To be honest I didn’t fancy it either but for £3 at Fopp who could argue?

The film opens with Kinski, who is a lowly army private, being run around the parade ground. After this he earns a few extra coins by shaving his Captain who must be a brave man to let Kinski near him with a razor. He also works part time for a doctor who is as mental as he is having Kinski eat nothing but peas for months and catching his falling cats.

If these points sound a bit whimsical they aren’t. There are no laughs at all in the film, just a lot of philosophising and gnashing of teeth. At home Kinski has a pretty lover and a bastard child. The lover takes his few coins but is being distracted by a drum major who has a nicer jacket. The stress of his life and all pea diet is sending Klaus around the bend and he starts to hear voices and imagines the earth is hollow with doom on the horizon.

After a few distressing episodes he goes and buys a knife and stabs his lover down by the river. Once he’s stabbed her for a full five minutes he retires to the bar where his blood soaked clothes draw attention causing him to flee. He returns to the murder spot to retrieve his knife and tries to dispose of it in the river. He convinces himself that each throw isn’t far enough and wades in each time to collect the knife and throw it further.

The film closes with the undertakers recovering the dead girl and we are left to guess if Klaus joined her by drowning. The film ends with a helpful caption that this was a ‘good murder’.

I wasn’t looking forward to this film and the sleeve notes which stated that it made a nod to Becket and Brecht inspired even less confidence. My fears were realised with a rather boring and ponderous film that seemed very nihilistic throughout. Klaus’ early comments that the poor didn’t have the luxury of virtue sealed his fate from the off and his downward spiral was relentless. The film looks pretty enough but has only 28 cuts in total meaning we get lots of drawn out scenes and moody silences. At one point I had to check that I hadn’t pressed ‘pause’ in error as Klaus just stared at me wordlessly for three minutes.

I’m sure this kind of film would go down a storm in the art houses and with pretentious students but as an exercise in enjoyment and entertainment it failed miserably. Think I’ll go and watch an autopsy to cheer myself up!

Best Bit : Cat-astrophie Averted
‘W’ Rating : 9/23

No. 111 : While You Were Sleeping (1995)

While You Were Sleeping at the IMDb

This is one of the better known ‘W’ movie but also one that I’ve avoided as the whole set up seems a bit creepy and predictable.

Sandra Bullock plays Lucy a lonely ticket seller on the Chicago subway system. She fantasises about a hunky commuter but misses the chance to chat him up when he passes through on Christmas day. Happily crime doesn’t sleep and he gets a kicking on the platform and thrown onto the track. Lucy (Sandra) manages to save his life but fortunately for the script he’s fallen into a coma.

At the hospital a nurse hears Lucy talking about the victim to herself and takes her crazed talk of marriage as fact. She announces this to the gathered family and Lucy plays along, lest the mother get a heart attack. Things get more complicated when a wise old relative overhears the truth and when the hunky Bill Pullman shows up, disbelieving that his brother could be so headstrong as to get engaged without telling the family.

The family rally round and after a few gatherings they all love Lucy and sparks starts to fly with Bill. After an hour the coma victim wakes up and, happy at his second chance at life offers to marry Lucy, who agrees despite her feelings for Bills.

As the predictable climax approaches (see the poster!) we have to wonder if Lucy will choose the right man and find happiness. No spoilers required - you know!

I really didn’t enjoy this film at all. It didn’t ring true for a moment and the characters from the savvy old relative to the wise and kindly black supervisor were such clichés. The plot never took an unexpected turn with things panning out as I, and probably everyone else, thought from the start. The family were unbelievably accepting of the cuckoo in their nest and even after the big reveal they were quite happy to have been taken for suckers.

Obviously I’m not the target for this chick flick nonsense but they could have shown an ounce of respect for the audience by not stampings the cookie cutter quite so exactly. The mawkish voice over will make you cringe as will the sweeping power ballads. In mitigation there were exactly two sniggers and I quite liked the Italian neighbour's son who had the hots for Sandra. In truth she does look pretty good but given she plays a mental stalker I think most wise men would steer well clear of her, and indeed of the film.

Best Bit : Wedding Objections mount up
‘W’ Rating 9/23

No. 105 : Werewolf in a Womens Prison (2006)

Werewolf in a Womans Prison at the IMDb

I’m sure that some high brow bloggers would dismiss a film like ‘Werewolf in a Womens Prison’ as tacky rubbish beneath their contempt but that’s certainly not us here at the ‘W’ movies extravaganza. It is our policy to fully watch any ‘W’ film before declaring it rubbish and we will do so in this case.

It’s unlikely that you’ve been troubled by this film at your local Blockbuster or even on late night TV but happily due to the wonders of the internet you can find it pretty easily in all the right or wrong places depending on your position on downloading and film copyright ownership. I of course found the film through legitimate channels, full details of which will be available as soon as I’ve made them up.

The film is of the ‘does what it says on the tin’ variety and the plot is thin as Kate Moss’ soup. We open with a not very young or attractive couple making out in a tent in a remote Latino campsite. Howls are heard but dismissed as the throes of passion right up to the point that a werewolf turns up and gets all bitey. With the bloke badly chewed the girl manages to fend off the attack using silver flaked vodka (?) but is unable to save her lover.

The local stereotype policemen refuse to believe her story and she is quickly placed in the local prison for his killing, which is also the local smutty film production facility. Our heroine is shocked at first but soon gets into the swing of things with the uniformly pretty and scantily clad populous. Things however take a predictable twist when she learns that the bite she suffered is likely to transform her at the next full moon.

After a laughable transformation during which many of the staff and inmates are butchered, the corrupt governor (is there any other kind?) and his hench lady plan to exploit the werewolf and use it in their freak show exhibition - bad idea! Can our heroine escape both the prison and the lupine curse? Who cares, there is still time to get those denim shirts off one more time!

It won’t be a surprise to learn that this is a bad film and to be honest I can’t remember one worse. It has a miniscule budget that allows only for the most terrible transformation effects imaginable and a cast that look like they’ve been hijacked from the local burger King drive thru. The dialogue is hokey at best with corny lines delivered, without irony, throughout. “Badger? We don’t need no stinking Badger” being one of the more memorable.

The plot is near non existent with every werewolf cliché you can imagine trotted out from silver bullets to the reappearance of the dead boyfriend, in a scene so reminiscent of ‘An American Werewolf in London’ that I was half expecting Jenny Agutter to walk on and shut down the production.

Doubters will of course say that the film is a self aware parody of the genre, but to pull that off you’d need a witty script and a werewolf that didn’t look like an old carpet with a couple of red light bulbs. In mitigation there is plenty of nudity albeit of the topless only variety and you have to laugh when the heads get bitten off and the blood starts spurting.

At the end of the day however the shockingly poor production values and terrible direction can’t be overlooked and you still feel short changed having seen the whole lamentable affair for nothing. It looks like a high school film project with it’s ropey sets, unbelievable acting and laughable effects and if it set out to be a homage or tribute to the classic ‘B’ movies of the past I’m afraid it only ranks as a ‘D’ at best.

Best Bit : Home video shoot
'W' Rating : 9/23

No.80 : Warning Sign (1985)

Warning Sign at the IMDb


You know that there’s going to be trouble from the first establishing shot of this 1985 shocker when we learn that the company concerned is called ‘Bio-tek’. Romantic comedies or emotional dramas never take place at firms called Bio-tek, as they are solely the domain for industrial accidents and zombie infestations.

It’s 5pm Friday night and the Bio-tek crew are closing up for the night. We know danger lurks as everyone has haz-mat suits on and the tannoy is barking constant instructions. One chap, who’s possibly a bit too keen to make it to happy hour, manages to get an ominous looking vial stuck to his suit and we get a tantalising few moments as it dangles while he tours the facility.

Eventually it falls off, but doesn’t break. The director then shamefully wrings every possible moment of tension out of the situation as it rolls around narrowly missing the boots of the unaware staff. It looks like we’re going to be OK until the idiot Captain off ‘Police Academy’ shows up and suggests everyone takes off their helmets for a photo before crunching the vial underfoot - Doh! and Double Doh!

The lab is quarantined by a lady security officer and pretty soon a sinister government convoy shows up headed by Katanga out of ‘Live and Let Die’ and ‘W’ classic ‘Witless Protection’. The staff try to bluff their way out but Katanga’s having none of that and despite his claims to the opposite we know everyone is being left to die. Obviously needing a man’s help the lady security officer calls her sheriff husband and he heads off to see a bad boy loner bio-engineer who lives in the hills and may have some skills to save the day.

Inside the plant the germ is taking effect with the first stage some glowing, then death and then mentalism. One pocket of staff are in the Bio-Tek amusement arcade (?) playing Crystal Castles while another are on a full scale rampage. Our lady friend and him off ‘Police Academy’ try to find a cure but it’s clear outside help is needed. The Sheriff and the scientist manage to break into the lab but can they concoct a cure before the maniacs kill everyone or the rednecks at the door break in and let them escape?

This was a truly crappy affair that had ‘TV movie’ written all over it. I quite enjoyed the improbable plot developments and the shameful acting but not enough to give it even half marks. I did quite like the red neck army fighting to free their quarantined relatives with blow torches and pick up trucks while the army and federal agents stood by.

It was a good idea to split the cast into groups in a way that let us see different stages of the disease and the reactions to It. Sadly the ‘disease’ was a bit of luminous paint followed by some joke shop warts and shouting. The place had no shortage of axes but there were no messy kills unless you count the English language and dramatic tension.

The idea of a loner bio-engineer living in the hills was laughable as was the eventual resolution - the best germ warfare agent ever seems remarkably susceptible to some red water, and all the frothing zombies looked like they’d be back to work tomorrow by the end.

The acting talent on show was uniformly awful with Katanga guilty of both wearing mirrored sunglasses and talking bad ass. Sam Waterston, whom I’ve disliked since he did that long joke in ‘Capricorn One’, didn’t convince as an action hero and the ‘Police Academy ‘ guy was his routine rubbish.

I'm pretty sure there was a subtext on show about bio-weapons being bad but seeing as it all got cleared up with a quick shower I'm not sure the point was well made. A bit like the film in general then!


Best Bit : Go away zombies, I’m playing Space Invaders!


‘W’ Score : 9/23

No.23 :Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden? (2008)

Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden? at the IMDb

Porn moustached and burger eating documentary maker Morgan Spurlock returns to find the titular bad guy and explore the motivations of those who are happy to lay down their lives for his cause.

The film opens with Morgan’s somewhat spurious reasons for going on an Osama hunt. His partner is pregnant and he wants to see what kind of world he’s bringing a child into. The more likely motivations of needing the cash and escaping a pregnant partner are not touched upon.


As in his previous documentary a potentially dry subject is dressed up with fancy graphics and sound bites lifted from TV shows. We see Morgan as a stop motion animation running around and then as a video game character, taking on Osama ‘Tekken’ style. I felt these bits were a touch self aggrandising, almost as if we should be chortling along as our good pal Morgan indulges himself. I wasn’t laughing and had more of a ‘what a self important prick’ kind of reaction.

The first part of the five part mission was the best as Morgan undergoes training to help in his mission. We learn how to deal with being kidnapped and how to survive a grenade attack. These sequences lead me into a false sense of security - I thought this would be a dangerous and exciting journey into the heart of darkness. But it wasn’t.

The next four sections are essentially the same as Morgan visits Egypt, Morocco, Afghanistan and Pakistan to ask the same questions and get the same shoulder shrugs in reply. To add a supposed element of humour Morgan dons full Arab dress and point blankedly asks scared locals of Osama’s whereabouts. Obviously they don’t know but we get a cheap laugh at intimidated foreigners, so that’s OK.

As the film draws to a close Morgan approaches the point of no return - will he enter Pakistan’s notorious tribal region to seek his quarry or will he scarper off home, having learned nothing?

It’s the second one.

This was a wasted 90 minutes for the viewer and a wasted opportunity. Morgan had cracking access to the military and the higher echelons of middle eastern government but delivered a puff piece that may serve well as a home movie for the Spurlock clan but no one else. His conclusion that we should win the “hearts and minds” of the people rather than pointlessly pursue terrorists was a real revelation - in 2004 when the US military appropriated the term.

Obviously he was never going to find Bin Laden, but so half hearted was this attempt that he’d of had as much success looking for him in his fridge and save us all some bother in the process.

Best Bit :Tough guy training school

‘W’ Rating : 9/23