Seagal Vs. Zombies and My Unnatural Thirst For Red Wine

So far on this blog, when I drink some hooch, its usually just that, hooch. Cheap beer or hard booze, likker. Recently I have come to the realization that rye makes me completely insane a la Jim Lahey, so I've decided to give the hard stuff a break. What do you drink when you can't drink hooch? Wine. Cheap, strong, red wine is the best place to go in such situations. In my younger days I tangled with the Carlo Rossi and the Livingston Cellars and the Franzia. In fact, my expertise in the cheap wine category led to the crap wine area in the liquor store where I worked to be named after me. It is still referred to as my wing at this particular store, which brings me no shortage of adulation.
I am older and more refined now, so I passed up the opportunity to get poisoned and hungover for two days by drinking a jug of Rossi and went for the Georges Duboeuf's Cuvee Rouge. At most fine package stores, this French red table wine is cheap as hell. Mine was $4.99 a fifth or two for $9. Noting this value, I went for the twofer. This stuff is no joke. Its not the greatest wine you'll ever taste, but its leagues better than Rossi and them. After feeling very buzzed after only two or three glasses, I noted that the wine is 12.5 % alcohol. Lots of bang for your buck.
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I settled down with my classy beverage to watch what looked like a very promising film. Steven Seagal versus vampires, as the synopsis on the back of the case describes it. Its actually Steven Seagal versus zombies. Holy moses, if done right, this could reach new levels of awesomeness not known to human beings. I felt like this was the OT VIII of Seagology. Unfortunately, like my life, this blog and the new Tacos at Midnight Doritos, this film is an exercise in blown potential.

I had a hankering that this film wouldn't be as awesome as it should be when I realized that there were tons of central characters besides Seagal. We watch Seagal movies to see Seagal. Sure, there are zombies in it, but they are just things for Seagal to destroy, in hopefully very gory ways. Instead, we have all these survivors walking around an abandoned hospital and having the exact same conversations that zombie survivors in approximately 1,000,000,999 zombie movies have had. Nobody is watching this lame zombie film for the lame zombie film in it, we want Seagal. Big, fat Seagal, in his three quarter length coat and his samurai sword. BUT no, either he didn't get paid enough to be in most of the film or whoever wrote and directed this is a commie and wants Seagal to share the spotlight with a bunch of other people. Never a good idea. Seagal is too big of a celestial body, all smaller things that enter his orbit get sucked in by his greater gravity and burn up in his atmosphere.

Not only are there lame survivors, but Seagal is part of a team of zombie hunters. Lame. It should be Seagal alone, protecting the survivors and slicing and dicing and kicking the crap out of the zombies. The Seagal inflicted violence just isn't there, as well. How come they can show zombies eating people's guts, but not show Seagal poking their eyes out and breaking their limbs? Talk about your screwed up values. Its fair to say that the zombie genre is dead, when even a force like Seagal can't breath new life into it. Its not his fault. About two or three straight to video Seagal movies come out a year and it seems like every single day, two or three zombie movies come out. That's around a thousand or so zombie movies a year versus his two or three movies. Even a monster like Seagal can't turn the tables on the never-ending tide of zombie movies. Damn, this could have been good though. Will somebody cool make a Seagal movie, please? Quentin Tarantino or Rob Zombie or somebody cool, please save this fat old bastard's career, thanks.

Crappy Movies Forever

So, I received yet another collection of obscure straight to video, mostly shot on video horror films, this one entitled "Catacomb of Creepshows".


I continued to nurture my injured ankle and damage my brain by watching more of these atrocities.

Curse of Pirate Death
Yet another flick from Brain Damage Films, a no-budget studio that churns out gory trash. This film was edited by Mark Polonia, brother of the late John Polonia. I have been a "fan" of theirs for years now. They made some of the worst/best shot on video films ever, starting with the ludicrous, disgusting "Splatter Farm" in the 80s.
This film concerns a pirate named Pirate Death who, back in the dayz, had a witch cast a spell on his hidden treasure. Whoever tries to take it gets killed by the retarded looking zombie of Pirate Death. This film stars Syn Devil, an actress seen mostly nude, who has boobs that are so giant and fake that they approach grossness. She appears in tons of these no-budget horror films. This film is filled with pointless nudity, terrible dialog, horrible acting and lame gore. That said, I kind of liked it. Its just stupid enough to be funny and contains enough completely idiotic scenarios to hold my attention. It loses steam towards the end, but over all I found it "enjoyingly retarded". (Quoted from my viewing notes.) Oh, and Ron Jeremy makes a random appearance as a pervy college professor.

Super Hell 2
This Cannibal Friends production was shot in and around my old stomping grounds of Louisville, Kentucky. Louisville is across the Ohio river from one of the nastiest places on earth, southern Indiana. People think of Kentucky as being a little bit redneck, which it is, but its like Mid-Town Manhattan compared to southern Indiana. The people even look different over there, like the gene-pool is tainted or something. (No offense to any of my friends that I worked with in Jeffersonville.)
The movie is basically completely retarded and totally pointless. I did like how it was set in hell, and hell is depicted as being Southern Indiana. That part of it struck a chord with me, because I thought it was about the worst place I'd ever seen next to Detroit. Syn Devil makes another appearance here, showing off her gross boobs. The movie basically consists of random, sometimes "disturbing" imagery and makes zero sense. It reminds me a little of the movie my friends and I made in High School. This dvd is available for free rental at Wild N Woolly video in Louisville. Wild N Woolly is the best video store I've ever had a membership to and I actually remember seeing this on the shelf there.

I've recently bought some bad-non shot on video DVDs, so my next column will be a break from these mind-numbing box sets.