Not one of these films is worth your time. Hell, to be honest, it probably isn’t even worth your time to read my reasoning for why they aren’t worth your time. But here we go anyway…
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STUDIO: Big Bite Entertainment
MSRP: $15.49
RATED: Not Rated
RUNNING TIME: 87 minutes
SPECIAL FEATURES: NA
The Pitch
Working vigilantly towards finally making clowns not scary.
The Humans
John Anton
Director: Tommy Brunswick
The Nutshell
Jingles the Clown (John Anton) is a legendary murderer who dresses like a clown (if that wasn’t implied). Young Angela Nelson managed to survive the night Jingles killed her entire family. The world thought the police gunned Jingles down that night. Nope. The clown survived. Now, years later, a Ghost Hunters-style reality program pays Angela to return to her old family home and confront her demons. Turns out Jingles has been hanging out there. Murder happens.
The Lowdown
I have a soft spot for low-budget horror. I can easily tolerate a lot. A lot. Bad acting? Par for the course. Redundant subject material? Pft! I actually love it. And I certainly don’t mind if a film looks like cheap crap – as long as it manages to shine in other areas. Jingles the Clown does not shine in other areas. It is more like a dark void from which light not only doesn’t shine, but gets trapped and neutralized. I say this with all sincerity (not trying to be cruel just to make this an entertaining read), Jingles the Clown is abysmal. There’s nothing wrong with the story or characters. I could easily see this movie having been a junky but edible flick; the kind of movie to partner with a twelve-pack, a pizza, and some likeminded chums. This film is simply too low-end to work.
Krusty is a scarier clown.
I just couldn’t get past how amateurish the film is. I truly tried, I even felt guilty about it, but at every turn it just punched my engagement in the face, as if to say, “No, you will NOT be able to tolerate this film!” The acting was like watching a high school play. The only actor I could stand watching even for a second was Tevis R. Marcum, as J.B., one of the reality show cameramen, who at least managed to seem like he was in a slightly better bad film.
Something this low budget needs to rely on atmosphere to earn its horror. Or at least have really inventive, goreless kills (as they clearly can’t pull off good gore). Neither of these happened. Jingles treats its kills like any ordinary slasher film would, which ends up looking cheap and half-assed. If anything could have made this film worthwhile it would have been the character of Jingles. A memorable Jingles could have turned the film into a shoe-string Dr. Giggles (awful but with a villain you manage to remember). But John Anton’s Jingles is possibly the worst part of this movie, which is saying something. Anton’s performance doesn’t even seem like that of an actor (his evil laugh is almost fascinatingly poor), and the costume and make-up are straight out of a Halloween store. The entire character seemed slapped together the morning they showed up on set. Which is strange, as apparently Jingles the Clown is a sequel of some kind to Mr. Jingles, also starring Anton.
The Package
Had a screener. Nothing to report.
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STUDIO: R Squared Films
MSRP: $17.99
RATED: Not Rated
RUNNING TIME: 93 minutes
SPECIAL FEATURES:
Behind-the-Scenes
The Pitch
Russ Meyer minus the style, charm, and hot chicks.
The Humans
Rose Gorlano, Brenna Lee Roth, Elske McCain, Scarlet Salem, Sara Plotkin
Director: Regan Redding
The Nutshell
We follow the intertwining (I say this loosely) storylines of a group of badass biker chicks who run an auto shop and moonlight as psychos; two retarded dirty cops; a Hanna Barbera-grade metal band; and some other criminals and lowlifes.
The Lowdown
This film opens with this titlecard…
Needing to explain that you’re a b-movie is kind of like needing to explain a joke. Never a good sign of its quality.
This movie suffers from all the same problems as Jingles, though it is definitely a step up. There is at least style to this filmmaking – it is incredibly annoying style, but at least it is there. Being annoyed is slightly better than being cripplingly bored. Although I became pretty bored here too.
Everything about this film screams Russ Meyer, and admittedly it does amiably in trying to ape the master. The problem is that without Meyer’s talent, all you’re left with is the sleaze. Sleaze can certainly serve its own ends – as a junior high kid scanning Showtime and Cinemax late at night for titty films, I didn’t care if the movie was good – but Killer Biker Chicks greatest failing may ironically be the biker chicks themselves. These girls look like real biker chicks. There is true authenticity here. Of course, this is the sort of area in which authenticity is not really desirable.
The film’s goofy metal band (who stop at the chicks’ auto shop for repairs on their van) I frankly kinda liked. I would have preferred a whole movie about them, minus every single other character.
The Package
The picture here is phenomenally bad. The aspect ratio is inconsistent throughout the film, with one entire subplot seemingly shot 4:3 and then smooshed to the positively CinemaScope widescreen the film otherwise has. There is a behind-the-scenes feature shot by one of the biker chicks that gives a nice quaint view of ultra-low budget filmmaking. It was frankly more interesting than the film.
BUY FROM AMAZON: CLICK HERE!
STUDIO: Big Bite Entertainment
MSRP: $17.99
RATED: Not Rated
RUNNING TIME: 103 minutes
SPECIAL FEATURES: NA
The Pitch
The world’s smallest outbreak movie.
The Humans
James Cable, Laurel Whitsett, Matthew Thompkins, Jeremy Schwartz, Sandy Fish
Director: Steve Mahone
The Nutshell
Ed (James Cable) is an employee at a secluded, private desert laboratory where a doctor has been trying to develop the perfect virus – a virus that would make the human body stronger. When the government finds out about the lab they raid the compound. The project’s four test subjects decide to make a break for it, but in the process one of them gets killed and the other three become infected with the still a work-in-progress virus. Now, along with Ed, they hit the road… and slowly die.
The Lowdown
As you might just be able to make out on that DVD cover, Jennifer Lowe of the Santa Fe Reporter is quoted, saying of Radiant, “…as if Stanley Kubrick had made Outbreak, or Cocteau had filmed The Andromeda Strain.” This is accurate in describing what the film is going for, and I’ll definitely give Radiant that – it has worthy goals. As a concept, I really dig this film. The film even comes within a stone’s throw of moderately achieving its stylistic goal, but it doesn’t make it. The acting is all very decent, at times even pretty good. The writing is mostly solid too. But the film is a real slog, and far too often falls into obtuse style affectations when it needed to be mining substance.
The very first five to eight minutes were actually pretty great. I thought I was in for a real treat. Ed narrates, setting up the nature of the virus experiments, and who our heroes are, and detailing the police raid, then detailing the escape attempt, then detailing one of the escapees getting killed, then detailing the remaining three meeting Ed, then detailing their first moments together, then detailing what happens after that… on and on… narration… twenty minutes. We get literally twenty minutes of voice over. I honestly thought the entire movie might’ve been one long voice over from Ed. It was almost jarring when it finally stopped.
The film plays weirdly with sound, intentionally (I assume) muffling the audio so it often sounds like we’re listening to the movie with a plastic sack over our heads. I feel a little bad about lumping Radiant in with those previous two turds, because I do respect that it was trying to craft something unique, and it has some nice visual compositions throughout, but since I’m trying to help you fine people best judge how to spend your $/time, I gotta give it to your straight – I think a vast majority of you will be bored out of your skull with this film. It holds almost every moment several beats (often a minute) too long. If you’re into that sort of thing, have at it, I suppose.
The Package
Had a screener. Nothing to report.