RRR - Randall's Review Room

"Enter the Drag Dragon" Where I watched it: The Fox Theatre This film is an absolute blast. If anyone has seen other films by Ottawa native/legend Lee Demarbre (Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter, Smash Cut) you'll kind of know what to expect, but nothing can truly prepare you for this wild ride. The film centers around a part-time detective/ full-time drag queen named Crunch. Along with his friend, Jaws, he embarks on the case of a stolen painting that turns out to be a treasure map.   The film casts 3 different actors as the lead, Crunch, as he gets comically disfigured in various ways throughout the movie.   Speaking of cast, there are about 20-30 characters in the movie, all of which get their own glorious grindhouse-style freeze frame intros. There are even some notable cameos from B-movie legends Lloyd Kaufman (Troma Entertainment) and Greg Sestero (The Room). The film also stars Phil Caracas, who played Jesus in Lee Demarbre's cult classic "Jesus Christ Vampire ...

"Vicious Lips" Where I watched it: Tubi From z-movie legend Albert Pyun, "Vicious Lips" is the story of a female glam rock group (called "Vicious Lips") trying to get to a gig that's on another planet. This is barely a movie. It's more like 3 or 4 music videos that are strung together by scenes of extremely boring dialogue. The sound mixing is particularly bad in mostly all of the scenes with dialogue. At times, people's voices will pierce your eardrums, and at others, they are an inaudible muffle. To be fair, the glam rock songs are pretty rad. After setting course for the gig in their spaceship, they soon crash land on a desert planet where there is a manbeast of some sort. Ever so slowly, this creature works its way from the outside of the ship to the interior, where it chases the band members around for a bit before... SPOILER: it gets pulled out of frame by a different manbeast and never appears again. The movie ends about 5 minutes after ...

"Death Spa" Where I watched it: AMC+ I wasn't sure what I was getting myself into when I put this on. "Death Spa" is a horror movie that takes place at a fitness center in the late 80s. Now, is a fitness center usually considered a spa? I'm not sure, but it's definitely not what comes to mind when I envision a traditional spa. Especially not the kind of establishment that this movie takes place in. It's almost like a workout mall. This gym/spa thing is inexplicably run by an advanced computer system that literally controls everything from the hot water in the showers to the resistance levels on the exercise bikes. The computer system is operated by one person named David, and he's a computer wizard of unmatchable skills. But forget about that for now. Let's talk about Michael, the infinitely cool manager of the gym/spa. Rarely wearing a shirt and constantly desired sexually by all who frequent the gym, Micheal has a traumatic past, one where ...

The Nine Kittens of Christmas" and H2 Craft Spirits Fire & Spice Cinnamon Whisky. I wasn't sure what to expect going in as generally these kind of things tend to leave a bad taste in my mouth... But this was truly an excellent twist on something we're all familiar with. It's perfect for the holidays but also really any time of the year. I can honestly say that it was sweet and warmed not just my heart but my whole body. If you are looking for the "spirit" of Christmas, look no further. Mighty fine whisky. Now for the movie. Absolute garbage salvaged only by the fact that there are 9 super cute kittens. Brandon Routh has fallen so far down the ladder... I mean this guy was Superman at one point (they actually make a reference to that in the movie).   Having now seen 3 Hallmark movies, I would say this was the most professional looking of the bunch but it still had all the fixtures of the Hallmark template: Baking, animals and rekindled romance. It actually...

"Harvest Lake" This movie is terrible. I wondered if it was a porno about 10 seconds before it literally revealed itself to be a porno. Normally I would immediately abandon a movie like this but what kept me going was the absolute comedy of it all. This actually should be submitted to Redlettermedia's Best of the Worst. It's sooooo awkward. It's basically non-stop softcore porn done in the most cringey ways possible. I honestly would be shocked if the people that agreed to act in this don't feel a great deal of shame and regret currently. In the midst of the horrible sex scenes, it becomes an experimental film about half way through with weird slow motion/warping effects and endless shots of a river. To be fair the shots of the water were the most competently done shots in the whole thing. But to be even fairer... the likelihood of those shots being stock footage is damn near 100%. The film ends with its big Lovecraftian money shot as the entire cast fornicate...

"Mutant" Forget every vibe you get from the title and poster, this is a zombie movie. "Mutant" is the story of two city bois who go to a small country town to relax and party hard. Nearing the small town they are driven off the road by the local yokels and are forced to hitchhike the rest of the journey with a weird man named Mel who claims that there are aliens visiting the town. Mel is straight up lying to the two city slickers as he damn well knows that he's the root of the problem as he's been experimenting on the townsfolk by slathering them in toxic waste. The end result of Mel's sloppy experimentations is that the town turns into zombies and yep the city bois gotta stay alive long enough for the movie to end. For some reason this movie has a cult following and I'm not sure why. It's got horrible production value, the acting is along the lines of those Italian cannibal movies I just watched and the story is weak even for a zombie movie. Wha...

"Llamageddon" Where I watched it: Tubi Obviously I was drawn in by this amazing poster and movie title. I did some quick maths (unheard of movie + tubi + this poster) which brought me to the conclusion that this was going to be terrible. Well guess what? It was pretty awesome. In its own way. The opening sequence (the first of 2) is animated and really sets the film up for success depicting a fleet of alien llamas leaving their planet in small trailer shaped space ships to presumably conquer other worlds. After this the movie takes a turn for the worse as we are introduced to the live action student film that it truly is. Bad audio recorded in camera and silenced in between lines only adds more attention to the roaring wind sounds that accompany the dialogue. Flat angles with DSLR cameras complete with dead pixels. Multiple times the crew can be seen in reflections including one scene where the camera man is seen in between 2 actors as he shoots directly into a mirror. Oh and...

"Head of the Family" Where I watched it: Shudder What in the flying **** did I just watch? Before we get into the nitty gritty here let me just go ahead and say this was a blast. "Head of the Family" is an insanity trip that feels like you're watching a porno movie made by a cenobyte. Shot on video with extremely tight close up shots to make up for the lack of back drops, I'm convinced they only had 3 walls they could shoot in front of. While the whole thing feels low budget there is some degree of artistic competency with the actual look of the "head" of the family. Speaking of porno movies, this film stars Jaquelline Lovell who believe it or not (you'll have no trouble believing this if you watch this movie) is/was an adult entertainer. Of course this is a Full Moon release so gratuitous t&a is to be expected. For me the most engaging aspect came in the way of Blake Adams' character. Fun fact, Blake Adams was credited by his original ...

"Moonfall" Where I streamed it: Prime Where do I start with this? So this is another disaster movie (in more ways than one) by renowned disaster artist Roland Emmerich. It stars Patrick Wilson and Halle Berry and is about AN ALIEN A.I. THAT DRILLS ITS WAY INTO THE MOON (WHICH TURNS OUT TO BE A MEGASTRUCTURE BUILT BY AN ALIEN CIVILIZATION) CAUSING THE MOON TO FALL OUT OF ORBIT WREAKING HAVOC UPON THE PLANET THROUGH FLOODS, RELENTLESS METEOR PUMMELING AND GRAVITATIONAL NONSENSE. This movie has a little bit of everything from Emmerich's previous films. The disaster elements of 2012 and The Day After Tomorrow with the alien sci-fi aspects of Independence Day. For a man who seemingly gets off on watching buildings crumble and cities flood, this is truly Roland Emmerich's ultimate cumpilation reel. Of course it goes without saying that this movie is terrible. But I'll tell you what, I watched this in bed sporting a gnarly hangover and it was exactly what I needed. It...

I had the exquisite pleasure of attending (prior to the COVID-19 pandemic) the world premiere of OUIJA SHARK at Toronto’s oldest and most run down theatre, The Grand Gerrard . I had no prior information about this film other than it’s title and poster but that was more than enough to convince me to take the plunge. Although the director is credited as Scott Patrick, his real name is Brett Kelly , and he explained after the screening that he uses the pseudonym to give him the option to distance himself from his extremely low budget films, if need be. With almost 40 films under his belt, Brett Kelly might be a hidden gem for fans of “ Best of the Worst ” style films. Having had no knowledge of Brett Kelly’s caliber of film making beforehand, I was immediately thrown off by the extremely low quality. The film was shot on a budget of $300 CAD ( $216 USD), a prop shark taking up the majority of the costs, at 200 bucks. Most of the actors worked in exchange for exposure as Brett Kelly’s fil...

VEROTIKA is a 3-part horror anthology film based on Glenn Danzig ‘s comic book series of the same name and it’s now available to stream online via Apple and Amazon Prime and came out on DVD and Blu-Ray on March 17th. Let me start off by saying, I am a huge Danzig fan. His musical career has been a rollercoaster ride from his legendary beginnings as frontman of the Misfits to a hoarse, wailing cover singer. (Look out for “ Danzig Sings Elvis ” coming this April.) Despite his obvious decline in quality, his music still manages to entertain on a completely unique level, sometimes even manifesting itself in an intensely comedic way. But that’s Danzig’s career, the punk stuff that was rough around the edges and perfect in its imperfection, the metal stuff that was cheesy but somehow empowering and the laughably bad missteps and unfortunate public displays of image ( kitty litter pics , “ Henry & Glenn Forever ”, the knockout video ) that turned him into a spicy internet meme. All of ...

  Another disasterpiece by Neil Breen. A sociopolitical call to action from a ghost/alien/robot/god. Not as good as Double Down and 90 percent filmed by a GoPro taped to a kite. 7/10