Sharknado 2: The Second One (2014)

For our 25th DTVC Podcast, and our last one of 2014, Jamie and I decided to do Sharknado 2. Jamie had already seen it, but I hadn't, and its inclusion on Instant came at a perfect time for this last podcast before our two-week holiday hiatus. Among the many other blogs that have reviewed this film, we have ones from friends of the DTVC Fred the Ex-Ninja, TarsTarkas.net, and previous podcast guest Fred the Wolf at Full Moon Reviews, so check those out as well.

Sharknado 2: The Second One is an Asylum joint where Ian Ziering reprises his role from Sharknado, this time consolidating his empire as head of a Sharknado mob family. Meanwhile, the story of Ziering's father from the old county, played by Robert De Niro, is told simultaneously, and we learn how he first started fighting Sharknados from a young age. Okay, none of that happened, it was just a cameo-fest that was set in New York City with CGI sharks getting carved up all over the place.

As is often the case with Jamie and me, we agreed on this one: great first 45 minutes, blah second 45 minutes. Somehow the fun and campiness of that first 45 gives way to useless backstory and padding and less Sharknadoing. Among the egregious mistakes, some unresolved love story between Ziering and Vivica A. Fox that was useless and unnecessary. Not to mention, they try to use a slingshot to shoot homemade bombs into the Sharknado like Ziering did in the first one, and it takes 3 tries to figure out they need another plan. What? Two fewer tries with more Sharknadoing was what we needed. Also, while some of the celebrity cameos were great, by that 45-minute mark we'd reached our saturation point with them. Among the things I loved though: Ziering was great again; the use of the Today Show was fantastic, also Stephanie Abrams and the Weather Channel; and I loved some of the landmarks like the Mets stadium and the Staten Island Ferry. I watched the first 45 minutes of this film with my wife, and then she wasn't able to watch the second half. I think she may have played it perfectly.

Let's start with Ian Ziering as Fin, because it really is his film. While he definitely had fun with it, the whole backstory and building his history thing was a waste. All it did was pad the film. If they needed backstory with him, maybe play up the Steve Sanders thing. We never had any 90210 jokes, at least not any I can remember as I write this review. There was a reference to Ziering and Mark McGrath (who played his old buddy and brother in-law) being troublemakers in school. Why not have fun with that? "Fin, remember how you got that bottle of champagne for prom and our friend Donna got drunk and almost couldn't go to graduation?" "I do man, that was bad." "Yeah, only you fixed it by organizing that protest and convincing the school board to change their minds and let her graduate." [Sugar Ray puts hand on Fin's shoulder] "You know how to fix things when they're wrong Fin, you always have. Now we need you to fix this Sharknado thing."

This is the film of a thousand cameos, and if I put them all in here that's all the review would be, so I just included a few. As I mentioned above, I really liked the Today Show thing. They also did The Weather Channel and Stephanie Abrams, and Live with Kelly and Michael. What would've been great is if they did Hardball with Chris Matthews or something like that, and had a Democrat and Republican argue who was responsible for the Sharknado: Global Warming or Obama? I think if you need to pad the film, goofiness like that works over bad backstory every time. Among the others I liked: Judd Hirsch as the taxi driver, and Robert Hays as the plane captain.

Jamie and I discussed what we thought were the best sequels when we looked at the film for the podcast. In my mind it's The Godfather II, with maybe House Party 2 a close second. We also talked about best sequel names, and we agreed that Electric Boogaloo is far and away the top, with everyone else coming in a distant second. I think where this movie failed the Asylum, is that it rushed it out there, and maybe didn't proofread that second script enough. I think they also probably got a bump from the premier on SyFy with the Twitterati watching it well-sauced by that 45-minute mark (which is more like the hour mark on TV with the commercials), so they weren't going to pick up on the second-half short comings. I know Jamie talked about that, how she read all these great Twitter comments the night before, then watched it the next day and couldn't understand where that came from. We'll see what happens in part 3, maybe they'll get back after it. Jamie and I noted though that very few franchises get better with the third film, Nightmare on Elm Street 3 being one of the few exceptions. 

Finally, if you'll allow me, I need to exorcise some demons here. Let me take you back to 1986, a seven-year-old Direct to Video Connoisseur, excitedly following his Boston Red Sox as they made an impossible comeback in the ALCS against the California Angels, then getting all the way to Game 6 and 3 outs away from winning the World Series against the Mets. Then the wheels came off, culminating in the ball going through Buckner's legs. Even now, almost 30 years, three Sox World Series Titles, and the Mets playing in a new stadium in abject mediocrity later, I still had trouble when I saw the Mets. When I took Jen to the Fenway Park tour in November of 2013, I was able to exorcise some of those demons by looking at the display the Red Sox had up for it, but I needed Sharknado 2 to show me that I was truly over it. Thank you Asylum, I really appreciate it.

Like the ninth inning in Game 6, this review has truly gone off the rails, so let's wrap it up before the ball goes through Buckner's legs again. The best way to do this is with a good amount of booze, so that you're well-inebriated by the time the film loses steam at the 45-minute mark. The first 45 are a lot of fun, but the second 45 not-so-much. You can always check out the pod by subscribing on your favorite podcatchers, or checking out the links on the sidebar.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3062074/

Looking for more action? Check out my short action novel, Bainbridge, and all my other novels, over at my author's page! Click on the image below, go to https://www.matthewpoirierauthor.com/

The Prophecy: Forsaken (2005)

This is the second of two Prophecy sequels written by our friend Johnny Sullivan (Twitter @johnnyblackout), who also wrote the fantastic Recoil.  Because both are on Instant, it worked out great that I could watch both, and Johnny was gracious enough to answer my questions about the writing process of both this, and the one before it, The Prophecy: Uprising.  Also, our friends at Comeuppance Reviews and The Video Vacuum have done this one and the previous one too, so you can go there to see what they thought.  (And I feel bad that I totally forgot to include their links to Uprising in that review.  Sorry guys.)

The Prophecy: Forsaken picks up where Uprising left off.  Kari Wuher is protecting the Bible, but now a new angel wants it, played by the great Tony Todd.  Angels can't get blood on their hands though, so he sends hit man Jason Scott Lee to kill Wuher.  Lee has a change of heart though after something inside Wuher tells him not to.  After she escapes, she seeks out the Devil's help (played again by John Light), but can she trust the Devil?  If not him, then who can she trust?  And why does Tony Todd want this damn book so bad?



This is pretty good.  It's not quite as good as Uprising, mostly because it's so short-- only 75 minutes, which, I know, it's crazy I'm complaining about the length being too short, but the shortness prevented us from developing the great characters played by Lee and Todd further.  Still, I found it to be a fun DTV supernatural thriller, and was a fun companion to Uprising.  Wuher, Lee, Todd, and Light all turn in great performances, and anyone who's a fan of them will enjoy seeing them here.  Not a bad deal for something on Instant.

As I mentioned above, Johnny was kind enough to tell us about the writing process for both of these films.  One thing I see a lot in the Netflix reviews and other places the films are discussed, was the idea that this was one script turned into two movies, and that wasn't true.  Johnny had two previously written unrelated scripts that he made into these films, and both of them were rewritten by director Joel Soisson to his personal vision and to fit Dimension's budgetary restrictions.  He said both films were meant to be short, but this one was shorter than his initial 80-90 page script, and it was very different from both the original story it was based on, and what he sold to them.  Also, fun fact, he got his Twitter handle from the original title of the Forsaken script: "Johnny Blackout".  You can read more about his work on these films in the Uprising review.



Kari Wuher reprises her role from Uprising, this time getting a little more background on her story.  We find out she was in Bucharest working at the church where the sacred Bible was kept because she was finishing her PhD dissertation on theology from the University of Chicago.  As the story becomes more convoluted, and we don't know who to trust, we're still with her exclusively and rooting for her to prevail, even if her prevailing isn't the best thing for us.  It makes for a level of nuance in a 75-minute DTV flick that we seldom see, which is always welcomed.

Tony Todd comes in as a bad angel and is immediately menacing, yet also has the sophistication you want from a character like that.  The man is the consummate professional, and has a pile of credits in everything from big Hollywood pictures to DTV to TV movies to TV shows to video game voice work.  I love seeing him in anything, and he was great here.  Jason Scott Lee, like Todd, had a cool part, but also like Todd, his role was underdeveloped, which was a disappointment.  I guess the issue was, how do you tell us who Lee and Todd are, while still centering the film around Wuher, and keeping it all in under 75 minutes.  Oh, and Jason London reprised his small role as Simon, Wuher's guardian angel.



Finally, John Light is back as the Devil, and he's even better this time.  Here is a great scene with him eating a Twinkie.  I love the idea of the Devil not exactly being the bad guy, but he's still the Devil and still a bad guy.  Like, he's helping Kari Wuher, but he helps her by killing a little girl.  How do we make peace with that?  We do it through John Light's great performance.  I joked in the Uprising review that he was the Poor Man's Dane Cook, and the first Poor Man's anyone to be better than the original; but now I'm going with him as great on his own, and won't put him and Dane Cook in the same sentence anymore, even as a joke.

Both as something to check out on Instant and as something you might come across on cable at 3AM, this isn't a bad deal.  I liked Uprising better, but after Uprising this is only another 75 minutes, so not bad to watch after.  Also, I'd say that watching Forsaken without seeing Uprising first is a bad idea, because you need to know what happened in Uprising.  And again, thank you to Johnny for answering my questions and talking about the film with us, I really appreciate it.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0439771/

The Prophecy: Uprising (2005)

Our friend Johnny Sullivan (Twitter @johnnyblackout ), a screenwriter who wrote the great Stone Cold Steve Austin actioner Recoil, mentioned that before that, he wrote two Prophecy sequels, this one and Forsaken.  He also mentioned that his original scripts were rewritten quite a bit, but that I should give the movies a look.  Considering how great Recoil was, and how gracious he was after I watched it in answering my questions about the process of making it-- and the fact that all five Prophecy films are currently on Instant--, all made this a no brainer.  Oh, and Kari Wuher in it didn't hurt either.

The Prophecy: Uprising is about a British detective of Romanian descent working in Bucharest.  He has a lot of personal demons he's trying to atone for, in particular a brutal mistake he made as a youth that he really couldn't be blamed for.  Anyway, a mysterious man claiming to be an Interpol agent approaches him for help solving a case.  At the same time Kari Wuher, living and working in an Orthodox church in the city, discovers the priest she works for dead on the floor of the basement, and a voice in her head (Jason London) telling her to pick up his massive bible.  Now she's fleeing from a rogue demon that wants the book, and our hero's Interpol agent is recruiting our hero to help her protect it before the bad demon can get it-- but can he trust the Interpol agent?



This is a fun DTV horror/suspense thriller.  It's compact, with the listed 88 minute runtime actually a good amount shorter with the credits taken out, and none of that time is wasted.  This is a reboot of the Prophecy franchise, and as such could've been full of onerous plot exposition to introduce us to the new storyline, but fortunately that doesn't happen.  I think when we see a DTV sequel of an established theatrical property, we hope for something like this: quick moving, not full of itself, but also not devoid of substance.  This story, while trim and lean, still had great moments, especially the plot twist at the end that I really liked.  This is the kind of 3AM insomnia burner that you see on the guidebar and find yourself still up at 5 (with commercials) finishing it off, thinking of the Tweet or Facebook status update about how little sleep you got last night that you're about to fire off.

It was great to be able to converse with Johnny via e-mail about this film.  I don't want to tell you too much about his original story, because it will give away this film, but he said he had written the script initially as a project that had nothing to do with the Prophecy.  Then he went to Dimension films after selling another script to Sony (which wasn't produced), and they asked him to work on The Prophecy reboot, which was one of many projects they had control over at that time, but needed to be rebooted because they couldn't get Christopher Walken anymore (he also pointed out that this was before the term "reboot" was en vogue).  He pitched that original script, and they loved it, he just needed to amend it to a DTV sequel scale.  He wrote both Uprising and Forsaken, and sold them both to Dimension.  From there though, director Joel Soisson rewrote them to his own vision.  What was interesting for me was how cohesive and consistent it felt despite having two writers, because often that's the death knell for a movie, too many cooks in the kitchen.  He said that, while it was heavily rewritten, the key elements-- especially the plot twist I liked, and the main thread about the bible, were his, which is probably why it still worked.  I will say though, between the two, Recoil, which was completely Johnny's movie and wasn't rewritten, was the better film; but to some degree comparing them is like apples and oranges.



Kari Wuher might have been one of my first celebrity crushes, back when she was on Remote Control in the late 80s.  I also remember that that was the first non-music video show on MTV.  Man, did that open the floodgates, here I am 25 years later watching Catfish while typing this review.  Videos?  You watch those on YouTube now, I watch MTV for Catfish.  Anyway, so you know, I go into seeing Kari Wuher in a film with that imprint on my brain from that many years ago.  But I think too, her character works as someone you genuinely want to root for, whether you had a crush on her as far back as 1988 or not, and that makes everything else in the film work that much better.

We've done over 900 movies here at the DTVC in over 6 years, and we still find things that we haven't see before.  John Light provides that moment for us here.  He looks like a Poor Man's Dane Cook, right?  Yet, as a Poor Man's, he's better than the original!  I've never seen the Poor Man's version be better than the original before.  I understand, when we're talking about Dane Cook, being better isn't hard, but still, a first is a first, and we have to acknowledge it.



I don't know if you know, but this movie was shot in Romania.  It's well established, with a lot of establishing shots.  They weren't like artistic Ozu establishing shots though, there was a lot of time elapsed film and whatnot.  I think the most egregious case of the overused establishing shots was Fast Five, where it was like "Hey, we're in Rio!"  "Did you know this film takes place in Rio?"  "Oh, by the way, Rio!"  "Hey, Rio!"  I think in The Prophecy: Uprising though, with this type of film, it worked.  It evoked that imagery we already have of Romania and Transylvania in a horror film, plus the old Orthodox churches and gave us that supernatural mystical version of Christianity that we need for a movie like this to work.  So, as gratuitous as the establishing shots might have seemed, I think they worked in adding to the atmosphere.

Especially while this film is available on Instant, it's worth a look, but if you see it for rent or on TV, I'd check it out too.  It's a fun, 90-minute, DTV supernatural-suspense thriller.  This is what we come to DTV for, to be entertained for an hour-and-a-half, and The Prophecy: Uprising does that.  Also, thank you again to Johnny Sullivan for taking the time to talk with me about this and about his role in making the film.  I really appreciate it.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0365658/

The Hitcher II: I've Been Waiting (2003)

I'm a huge C. Thomas Howell guy. No one else who votes on the DTVC Hall of Fame is, so he's been frozen out, at least for now. I bought this movie on the cheap at BestBuy partly for C. Thomas Howell, and partly because The Hitcher with Rutger Hauer (a real DTVC Hall of Famer) was one mine and my friends' favorite movies growing up. No, I haven't seen the remake that came out recently, should I?

The Hitcher II: I've Been Waiting takes place a while after the first one. C. Thomas Howell is having trouble getting over what happened, which is very understandable. Kari Wuher, his woman, thinks he should be getting over it faster, which doesn't really make any sense, because what Rutger did to him in the first movie was pretty traumatizing. Anyway, they decide to take a vacation to get away from it all. Howell is murdered by the new Hitcher, played by Jake Busey, and now Wuher must sub in for Howell and remake the first movie.

I didn't go into this movie with high expectations, and I still was let down. First, Howell was killed off early. I couldn't believe it. Why am I watching it then? Busey wasn't bad as the new Hitcher, but he also isn't Rutger Hauer. Part of the allure of the first movie was the advanced age of the killer--like he could almost be a twisted father figure to Howell. Maybe they should've gotten Jake's dad, Gary, instead, or even Dennis Hopper. Then we'd all be happy.

This isn't really a sequel, it's a cheap remake sans anyone worth watching. Jake Busey and Kari Wuher are great extra people to throw in, but I need someone big, like a Hopper, or a Hauer. I was expecting C. Thomas Howell, but the movie makers were arrogant enough to think they could pull this off without him. They were wrong. Dead Wrong.

Don't waste your time on this sack of asscrack. I'm not even talking about spending money on it, I'm saying don't waste the hour-and-a-half of your life. Don't see it for free. Watch something you've already seen before, like the episode of SportsCenter you just sat through. Or watch something you've never seen, like a soccer game, or a mini-marathon of Laguna Beach. Whatever you do, don't watch this.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0299988/

Looking for more action? Check out my short action novel, Bainbridge, and all my other novels, over at my author's page! Click on the image below, go to https://www.matthewpoirierauthor.com/