“Beneath Still Waters”
It’s no secret that Lionsgate has fast replaced New Line as the go-to studio for all things horror, but as we know, with great power comes great responsibility, and that doesn’t exclude releasing every single B-movie horror flick onto DVD. Sure, the direct-to-DVD market is a very profitable business (and if there’s one genre that’s tailor-made for it, it’s horror), but does that mean that moviegoers should forego their expectations of quality because of it? Hell no, especially when men like Brian Yuzna (perhaps best known for producing the horror/comedy cult classic “Re-Animator”) are taking advantage of the system. His latest is a melting pot of bad acting, terrible effects and one of the lamest stories of the year, and it should be avoided at all costs.
“.45”
I truly hope writer/director Gary Lennon never plans to work in Hollywood again. Any movie that opens with a monologue devoted completely to the size of its character’s dick (though his name is Big Al) is suspect to some pretty heavy criticism, but the fact that he continues to insert these “interviews” throughout the rest of the movie only further proves just how lazy of a screenwriter he is. Can he not tell a simple story without some sort of lame voiceover or confessional to do it for him? Quite simply: no. Of course, it never helps when Milla Jovovich and Stephen Dorff (who are having trouble even finding work in B movies these days) are your stars, though Angus Macfayden looks to be having fun with this over-the-top criminal.
“The Mad”
In what can only be described as “Fast Food Nation” meets “Shaun of the Dead,” Billy Zane stars in this horror comedy about disease-ridden beef patties that transform their digesters into flesh-eating zombies. Trying oh-so-hard to be the goofy zombie romp that has since made “Shaun of the Dead” a cult classic, “The Mad” is mildly amusing, but easily forgettable. Zane hams it up as the lead protagonist, a former rocker-turned-doctor on a road trip with his new girlfriend and daughter, but the laughs are too few and far between to consider this a recommendation.
