In junior high school, I used to be forced into going to this ridiculous mandatory sex-ed assemblies, which were light on the education and heavy on the “sex kills”, if you know what I mean. I used to have to hear all kinds of horror stories about the inherent dangers of sex and gruesome photos of girls and boys who did it once – JUST ONCE – and got some mutated form of the Ebola virus or something and DIED. THEY DIED, GUYS.
Anyways, one of my favorite parts of these assemblies was hearing about HORRIBLE, AWFUL syphilis, which as we all know, makes you go blind and crazy. Being a syphlitic is not fun if you’re in the tertiary stages, what with the craziness and what what.
This is salient (I promise) because if a modern day syphilitic made a movie, it would be Midnight Skater. I would imagine that if someone had their brain slowly being eaten by spirochetes, Midnight Skater would be the end result. This is what they should show in sex-ed assemblies to teenagers to say “DON’T HAVE THE PREMARITAL SEX. FOR REAL.”
Midnight Skater is hard to summarize, mainly because the movie itself runs in about eighty different directions. There’s zombies and a serial killer on the loose at a college campus and a graffiti artist on the loose. (Guess which issue the residents of the college campus are most worried about? If you guessed “graffiti artist”, you win a cookie.)
And therein lies the main problem with the movie; it runs too wild over too many topics. This is a movie made by film geeks run amok, guys who watched too many Troma movies late at night while nibbling on their fingernails and dreaming of their own sick, twisted visions. And, hey, that’s cool – but if you’re going to Tromatize your movie, at least do it right.
For starters, use something else than Mommy’s video camera.
Guess what?
This is what the entire film looks like. It’s like your local high school A/V club shot it.
The main problem is everything about the way the film’s made. While the gore is reasonably done for a movie like this, the actual quality of the footage sucks, pure and simple. And quite frankly, it’s ugly looking; you can see shadows of the camera people in the shots, very often the camera shakes and when it doesn’t, it’s just fixed from shot to shot with no movement whatsoever, which gets startling. Granted, this was probably made by college kids on a budget but it’s annoying.
ANNOYING LIKE SYPHILIS.
Anyways.
This is what a zombie looks like in this movie:
Hey, it’s Harry Potter!
It’s a cheap shot, I know, but the zombie-action in this movie is so dreadfully boring and unnecessary. Me, personally, I never thought I’d see the day when I said, “Zombies are completely unnecessary” but, yea, here is the day.
The problem is, I kind of want to like Midnight Skater. I get what the people who made this are aiming for: cheap fun for horror fans who get it, but they can’t deliver, mainly because they’re too busy saying, “This would be awesome!” to think about the fact that the awesome little things don’t cohesively flow. The main bad guy is eyeroll-worthy. The acting is screamingly awful, mainly because it’s woefully apparent that the cast are friends roped into the production.
So, what’s a blogger to do when it’s clear from the first fifteen minutes that the movie is going to blow more chunks than Linda Blair in The Exorcist?
Well, you find little things that cheer you up. Like this dude:
This dude is the uber-geek of the film; whoever plays him ought to be given a gold medal par excellence for the sheer fact that he is quite simply the only redeemable facet of this movie. He’s funny and weird and quirky, and he suits up at the end to take on the serial killer who has brutally murdered his friend. It should be noted that his room contains both a Misfits poster and a G.I. Joe flag side by side, which is enough to put him quite firmly in the “awesome” category for me.
SEE WHAT I MEAN ABOUT THE VIDEO QUALITY?! ARGH. Syphilis. It’s the only explanation (that I like).
Anyways, notice the band shirt that kid is wearing? Caustic Christ? I saw those guys a few years back and they’re awesome to see live, but I began to imagine what it would look like if Caustic Christ actually saw this movie and then saw their band shirt being rocked by this kid.
My mental image? It was funny.
For the love of God, I beg you not to see this movie. It takes a mediocre premise and makes it worse. You see this above? How awkward, stilted and forced this looks? Do you know see how painful and exhausting just this one screenshot appears?
Congratulations, I have just saved you a few hours of your life, because that, ladies and gentlemen, is probably the best indicator of the entire feel of Midnight Skater.
I’ll probably waste those few hours teasing my cat with a ribbon anyways
J.D., please tell me you are not planning on seeing this.
PLEASE.
Oh, I’m not.
I was just pointing out the failure of your assumed logic. :P
Thanks, J.D. It’s nice to know you’ll always be there for me. :P
This movie looks epically retarded. I can dig that.
From the screencaps it looks like it was filmed by the same crew that made Redneck Zombies.
That is not a compliment.
This movie looks epically retarded. I can dig that.
Coffee. Out. The. Nose.
From the screencaps it looks like it was filmed by the same crew that made Redneck Zombies.
That is not a compliment.
Yeah, pretty much, andrew. I actually think this one might be worse, footage-wise, than Redneck Zombies. It’s scary, but it’s the truth. :(
I actually think this one might be worse, footage-wise, than Redneck Zombies. It’s scary, but it’s the truth. :(
Yikes. That’s bad. I actually thought about submitting Redneck Zombies for this project of yours. If this is worse….ugh.
So, speaking of shitty movies, we finally saw the 3rd Pirates of the Carribean this weekend. Late to the party, I know. We just avoided it because we knew it would blow. Turns out it does. What a shame spiral that franchise sunk into.
I actually thought about submitting Redneck Zombies for this project of yours. If this is worse….ugh.
Dude, I thought about re-watching Redneck Zombies for this project. Or Girl School Screamers – that one was pretty bad, too.
Fun story since we’re sorta discussing Troma flicks: Older Sister was asking me this weekend, “Have you ever seen this movie called The Toxic Avenger? Oh my GOD IT IS SO AWFUL” and then I had to fess up that I used to own the Toxic Avenger box set. Yes, it was awful, but in a good way. :D
So, speaking of shitty movies, we finally saw the 3rd Pirates of the Carribean this weekend. Late to the party, I know.
Dude, I was too dazzled – dazzled – by Depp the first time around to notice just how bad it was. I thought it was just kind of mediocre. And then we actually rewatched it on DVD and lordy, lordy was it bad.
Seriously, WTF was up with Orlando Bloom’s outfits? And just…everything? But out of all of them, I really hate the second one the most. I hate the beach chase and all that and Jack getting eaten. Just so lame. LAME.
They should’ve never sequelized it. And now they’re wanting to make a fourth one! :p
“Have you ever seen this movie called The Toxic Avenger? Oh my GOD IT IS SO AWFUL” and then I had to fess up that I used to own the Toxic Avenger box set. Yes, it was awful, but in a good way. :D
Haha! That’s funny. And seriously, it’s not “fessing up”! You should be damn proud to own the box set!
Seriously, WTF was up with Orlando Bloom’s outfits? And just…everything?
I don’t know about the outfits, but sweet jebus the whole thing was lame. I equated it to a filmmaker trying to cram 3 or 4 movies into one, but then taking out everything that would actually move the plot forward. All that you have left is a pantload of battle scenes, random bits interjected to propel the movie into the next battle scene, and shit that the director decided to shoot because it looked really cool.
I actually got up in the middle of it, made dinner, sat down and ate it, then finished watching the movie…and I don’t think we missed out on a single important piece of celluloid.
So basically, it was a standard Bruckheimer flick.
So basically, it was a standard Bruckheimer flick.
HEE!
I actually got up in the middle of it, made dinner, sat down and ate it, then finished watching the movie…and I don’t think we missed out on a single important piece of celluloid.
You really didn’t. I saw it in the theaters opening night and by the time we left, I thought I was going to die from starvation and dehydration (seriously, way TOO LONG).
The sad part is, I could’ve gotten up and gone to the concession stand at any point – and it wouldn’t have mattered a whit, really.