Morristown Woman Seeks To Help Kids In Newark

Being of Dutch origin, Maria de Mos has an extravagant garden on her front lawn which she takes great pride in.

“All Dutch people have gardens,” she says cheerfully as she steps out of her house, the sun splashing down on her purple perennials.

Being of the World War II generation and once kept in an internment camp in Indonesia by the Japanese, Ms. de Mos has a lot to smile about today. Especially now that another successful year of the Suburban Cultural Educational Enrichment Program (SCEEP) that she’s a tutor for has again reached its completion date.

“I’ve been working with SCEEP as a tutor for the past 30 years,” says Maria, who hasn’t missed a day since she started working with her Presbyterian Church in Morristown ever since it originally began working with SCEEP many years ago. “There is one child who I know went to college who used to be in the program, and when you hear something like that, it makes you feel damn good.”

A widow but living with her son, Mark, who’s an artist much like herself (it’s one of her many talents), she fits her artwork in with her work with the kids.

“I do it for fun and I also sell it,” she says, regarding her artwork, which layers her walls and hallways, along with her son’s, “I like to do abstract and landscapes, too.”

The purpose of SCEEP is to provide face-to-face tutoring to kids who attend Newark elementary schools, with the ultimate goal of improving their academics, giving them more self-esteem, and keeping them from dropping out of school. A bus picks the kids up after their bell rings and brings them over to one of the host sites so they can learn a multitude of studies, including reading, writing, and art. Once they’re done for the day, they’re bussed back to Newark.

The Presbyterian Church in Morristown isn’t the only group to participate with SCEEP, though, as fifteen churches, six corporations, one university, one private school, a synagogue and fifteen Newark Public Schools around New Jersey are also deeply involved with the program. Included in this roster are the Union Congregational Church, Bloomfield College, and the United Methodist Church in Madison, just to name a few. It’s a program that offers close to 500 children after school tutoring each week. It’s also the largest one-on-one tutoring program in New Jersey and is privately funded by churches, synagogues, universities, private schools, and
Protestant Community Center Inc. (PCCI)

Each location has multiple members and tutors that number around 500 volunteers around New Jersey who provide close to a million hours of service each year. This particular SCEEP in Morristown that de Mos is a part of has about 28 tutors and activity volunteers including a multitude of cooks that provide food for the kids.

“We work with 3rd, 4th, and 5th, graders,” de Mos says, “and if you can read, you can help.” The kids are taught and given time to play for all three years, one day a week, two hours a day, and the program acts as a form of extra help during the regular school year.

Ms. de Mos is personally no stranger to helping out others and being helped herself, as three years of her youth were spent living with the grudge of being held in an internment camp with little food or comfort. “My father was a civil engineer,” Ms. de Mos says with a smile creeping up on her face, “and he brought to the camp running water and toilets.”

Asked as to why her father did such a thing, she responds rather matter-of-factly, “He just thought it was the right thing to do.”

And that’s similar as to why Ms. de Mos helps out with SCEEP in the first place—she just thinks it’s the right thing to do.

“Indonesia had free hospitals and free education,” de Mos says as she gives one final look at her garden before she steps back into her house.

It’s a look that’s very proud of both the growth of her garden, and also the growth of all the young minds she’s helped over these past thirty years of her life.
###

Semi-Pro Review

Rich Knight
Unrated
DVD
91 Mins
No Rate
Starring: Will Ferrell, Woody Harrelson, Andre Benjamin, Maura Tierney, Will Arnett, David Koelchner
Produced by: Jimmy Miller
Written by: Scott Armstrong
Directed by: Kent Alterman
New Line Cinema
Website: http://www.semipromovie.com/

Unfortunately for Will Ferrell, Semi-Pro will probably go down in history as “That basketball movie with Will Ferrell wearing an afro,” or, “That movie where that poor stunt double got mauled by a bear.” Either way you put it, though, both of these unfiltered quotes could probably be combined to sum up the movie as a whole: Will Ferrell playing basketball with an afro and getting mauled by a bear. There really isn’t much more to this lackluster, sport-themed comedy.

The Movie: 1 star

Will Ferrell, like Shaq at the free throw line, is entirely undpredicatably when it comes to making movies. Sometimes, he can land a slam dunk and elevate himself to comic god-like status with movies like Old School and Talladega Nights. Other times, he misses both shots entirely at the free throw line and brings down the whole damn team with atrocities like Kicking and Screaming and Bewitched. Well, taking that whole basketball analogy a bit further, Will Ferrell’s latest entry to the sports world, Semi-Pro is a missed basket that winds up costing the whole team the last game of the finals. This ultimately makes it a horrible decision for anybody and everybody involved.

The worst part of all this, though, is that all this could have actually been avoided if the cast had had a better script on hand. Instead, plain sight lead in jokes often stumble, action scenes clunker along, and Will Ferrell is just left to stand around and scream his head off. In the end, it’s easy to see that the star is using whatever moxie he can to try and not look bored in this unabashedly terrible movie.

Given how bad this movie is, though, it’s all the more a shame to find that the story actually had potential. It’s the follow-up lay-up, though, that’s the problem, and that’s what ultimately jumbles the whole movie. Will Ferrell stars as Jackie Moon, a disco star in the late 70s whose rise to fame is spearheaded by a ludicrously explicit disco song called, “Love Me Sexy.” It was this song that made him rich enough to purchase the fictitious Flint Michigan Tropics for reasons that are never quite explained throughout the entirety of the movie.

The problem is, though, as the current coach, promoter, and even player for the team, he’s also responsible for the team’s future, which is put in jeoprody when the NBA threatens to buy out the ABA in a merger that could possibly close the Tropic’s franchise forever. It’s up to Will Ferrell to get his losing team to winning status if he wants to save them from impending doom and the inevitable closing of their doors. It’s a story that definitely could have worked in the right hands. I mean, Dodgeball worked, and that’s almost the exact same story: Underdogs looking to lose their territory fight back to hilarious results. Seriously, what could possibly go wrong?

Apparently, everthing though, as Semi-Pro quickly shows in the very first few scenes of the movie. Will Arnett playing a smarmy announcer donning a very 70s’ style mustache should work in theory, so why doesn’t it?

And Andre Benjamin, who’s great in everything he does, also seems to just hang around and do nothing, as his character, Clarence Withers/Coffee Black/and other names that are equally un-funny, doesn’t have a single smile worthy moment in the entire film. Not a signle one. Hey ya, Hollywood, what are you doing? Andre Benjamin pretty much epitomizes the entire concept of the word fun, so how could you possibly render the Outkast star charmless?

And then there’s Woody Harrelson, playing the role of a washed up, love-sick former basketball champion who comes to the aid of the Tropics in their dire time of need. As soon as Woody Harrelson gives his, I-hate-my-current-life scowl and starts kicking in cop car windows, you wonder if anybody on the set actually told him to loosen up as he looks like he just stepped off the wrong sound stage. This is a shame, too, as Harrelson has already proven that he could do basketball dramedy in White Men Can’t Jump, but that’s also a huge problem with Semi-Pro—you really can’t tell which direction this film is heading in.

Of course, if it has Will Ferrell screaming and making a lot of noise, it has to be a comedy, right? But there are just too many dour moments in the film that completely sour the deal. With Woody Harrelson’s depressed character, it’s obvious that we’re not going to get any memorable catch-phrases from him, but with Will Ferrell, we expect more; much more. At times, though, Will Ferrell’s character seems just as pathetic and yearning for something more as Harrelson’s character, and not to comedic effect as you’d see in other over-the-top Will Ferrell movies that have just the right touch of heart and character to make them classics.

Overall, it’s the lack of laughs, good characters, and famous Ferrell-isms, that ultimately hamper this misguided movie. Semi-Pro is one missed jump shot too many in a stream of questionable Will Ferrell films that don’t quite live up to the hype of the name on the marquee poster.

The Disc: 2 stars

I applaud New Line Cinema for sticking two different versions of the film, an unrated, slightly raunchier version, and the original, theatrical one, on the disc, but the differences are so minimal that you barely even realize that there are differences between the two at all. So minimal are these differences, in fact, that I’m not even really sure if there are any differences between the two versions besides an added F bomb here, and a little more nudity there. In the end, you feel cheated for watching both versions of the movie, especially when the movie is as atrocious as it is and doesn’t warrant being watched a second time through.

The biggest problem with the disc though is that the added unrated version is the only real special feature on the entire disc. Seriously, where are the deleted scenes, where are the television promos, and where is the much needed, audio commentary? I mean, even for a terrible movie like Semi-Pro, I expect some kind of special features for its big time release. Instead, we’re left with the ability to turn on subtitles or check out new movies that are coming out soon for DVD and Blu Ray. Come on, New Line, don’t people who shilled out money for this movie deserve more than just an unrated version that might as well just be the regular version? Is that all you’re really have to offer us, guys? Unfortanely, this lack of special features looks to be a trend in a lot of DVD’s these days, and not just for an outrightly bad Will Ferrell movie that can’t land a comic alley oop to save its life.

So, Wait. Is Killer Instinct 3 Coming Out Or Not?

In a recent article from 1up.com, EGM’s surreptitious scuttlebutt scavenger, Quartermann, seems to have uncovered news that Rare is hard at work on a new Killer Instinct game goofily titled, Killer Instinct 3D: Death, Destruction, and Doom. For an immense fan of the series like myself, this couldn’t be better news. Well, it actually could be better news—Silicone Knights could announce that they were hard at work on Eternal Darkness 2: Even Darker—but I guess beggers can’t be choosy, and I’ve definitely been begging for a KI sequel for like, ever, now.

Little is known about the game, or even if the game actually exists, but if Quartermann says it’s true, then I’m going to have to choose to believe it. More often than not, that mysterious mole seems to be right on the money with his rumors, so I’ll take it as fact for the time being. Until, that is, Rare breaks my heart again and says that Banjo-Kazooie is full steam ahead, while Killer Instinct is just a KI fan’s pipe dream.

But what a pipe dream that would be, right? Memories of Jago, Fulgore, and TJ Combo are already making my fingers and wrists pamptomine incidents in the arcade where a greasy joystick and busted buttons were the only things I was touching. Seriously, what the hell has Rare been doing all this time that warrants them not making a sequel for this game already?

We shall soon see if the X-Box360 produces another hit with the KI name attached to it. In the meantime, though, would it be too much to ask to see either the original KI or the slightly lacking KI2 on X-Box 360’s live arcade? It’s been too long since I’ve heard a well derserved, ULTRA, ULTra, Ultra…rigning in my eardrums on a hot summer day.

Teeth Review

Rich Knight
R
DVD
94 Mins
No Rate
Starring: Jess Weixler, John Hensley, Josh Appleman, Lenny Von Dohlen
Directed by: Michael Lichtenstein
Produced by: Joyce Pierpoline, Michael Lichtenstein
Written by: Michael Lichtenstein
Dimension Extreme


For virgin males, the fear of what “it” might actually feel like down there between a woman’s thighs can be very real and horrific if one’s imagination were to run away with itself. Thoughts of anything from a vicegrip like hand to pincers that will chomp off precious appendages can be evoked by even the tamest of minds.

Teeth, a movie featuring a teenager with actual chompers between her legs, plays with that concept to the extreme and supplies ample laughs for just as many cringes.

The Movie: Four stars out of Five

To call Teeth a horror movie is a bit unfair, even though I’m sure the marketing committee would love to have it called as such to give it that special edge to it. In all truths, though, if Teeth is to be considered anything, it’s a black comedy with elements of horror attached to it that make it feel more camp than bone-chilling. In other words, it’s about as alarming a cautionary tale for men as Army of Darkness is a caugtionary tale for hardware salesmen sent back through time to fight medieval skeletons atop a castle.

As much as that campiness might detract from the overall horror feel this film is trying to evoke, though, that’s what actually gives it its charm—its ability to laugh at itself for being so bizarrely wonderful and wonderfully bizarre at the same time.

The story is centered around a young woman embodying the sexual mythology of vagina dentate, which is, if you’ve never read anything of Frued or Greek mythology before, the belief that some women might have pearly whites beneath their pubes. In the wrong hands (or is that legs?), this could cause almost epically large ramifications for a sexually active woman looking to detach as many male members as possible. But our hero, Dawn (Played by the excellent, Jess Weixler) is not that kind of girl. No, she’s actually a member of a very chaste group that frowns upon sex before marriage and wears a special ring to indicate how serious they are about abstenance.

The thing is, Dawn is too good. So good in fact, that when a local boy with the kind of submersive eyes that make young girls swoon, tries to rape her, you know the remainder of the story is going to be focused on her ultimate descent into madness, and that’s okay. In a way, Teeth acts as a meta-throwback to vintage horror movies like Friday the 13th, where the people who bit the big one were always the antsy kids who couldn’t wait to step out of their virginity suits and get it on in the forest, and the plot of Teeth takes that idea a bit further. The message of “do it and die” fits nicely here, and is actually mocked at by the ridiculousness (even though it might actually be realistic) of the abstinence group Dawn subscribes to called The Promise. The real promise in the movie though, is that sooner or later, Dawn’s going to be taking a bite out of her victims when anybody steps beyond their bounderies. The real hoot being that instead of sex being the reason for the killings, as in Friday the 13th, sex IS the killer in this movie. In other words, sex kills.

And a lot of that message couldn’t be pulled off if the actor’s weren’t entirely believable in their performances. Jess Weixler plays the perfect naïve girl who’s just trying to deal with the world any way she can, and her half-brother, Brad, played by John Hensley, plays the perfect polar opposite. He’s the kind of skeevy guy with muttonchops that you could see yourself fearing, but, could also see yourself feeling sympathetic for due to problems he might have had in his childhood—did I mention that Brad can only have sex anally with the women he dates due to something psychological that happened to him and his sister when he was younger?

This movie isn’t perfect though, and some of it is actually hampered by the moments where it’s trying to vear away from comedy and into shock horror territory. Moments of seeing gaping holes where penises used to be are not as silly as they could be, and the dynamics of the overall family could be stronger, especially since Jess’ mother is dying throughout almost the entirety of the film. But that’s just being obsessive about nitpicky details that don’t really hamper the film in any way. Overall, Teeth does have quite a bite to it, even though some of the minor problems give it sort of softened chew.

The Disc: One star out of five

Featured on this very barebones disc are deleted scenes that add absolutely nothing at all to the movie as a whole. Also on this disc are a TV spot, a trailer, and a hit or miss commentary by writer/director, Micheal Lichtenstein. As mentioned before, the deleted scenes are an absolute waste of time, but what I really want to talk about now is how sick and tired I am of these sparse spoken commentaries that are becoming more and more the norm these days. In this DVD, the director seems to feel that it’s only important to discuss his film when he’s not entirely absorbed in his own finely wraught creation. In other words, for almost the entire DVD commentary, the director remains silent and we’re left to watch the movie over again with brief spurts of the director talking about how brilliant the music is, or how finely acted some of the scenes are.

I mean, for a movie like Teeth, a second watch through isn’t so bad, as there are a lot of comical details on the sidelines and in the musical cues that you may have missed early on the first time through. But for other, far worse films, where the director doesn’t have much to say, then by all means, don’t say anything at all and leave the commentary for those who like to ramble on and hear themselves talk (Kevin Smith, I’m looking at you).

I wouldn’t be so pissed though if the brief, intermittent moments of commentary weren’t so daggone interesting. We learn that the cooling towers in the film, the ones that sit in the background for a majority of the movie, are meant to represent our main character’s emotions; hence, the reason why the smoke that bellows from them gets blacker and blacker the further the plot progresses. We also find out that her sick mother is actually sick BECAUSE of the smoke from the cooling towers, which was something that was totally lost on me the first time through.

A lot of my angst in all this though is because I’m an honest to God fan of movie commentary who often likes listeining to it more than actually watching the movie itself. For me, one of the main reasons why I think commentary is so interesting is because it adds an extra layer of depth that creates a sort of subcutaneous bit of flesh on top of the skin that’s already on top of the film. But nowadays, it seems like a lot directors feel that it’s actually necessary to put a commentary in their DVD, even if they don’t have anything to say, and for me, that’s a problem.

In the end, though, I guess my biggest complaint is the fact that I feel lied to by the company distributing the film. I mean, I don’t think it’s acceptible to have it printed on the box that there’s director commentary if the director only speaks for about 30 minutes in a 90 minute film. To me, that’s false advertising that hampers the film, rather than enhancing it. Teeth, good movie, bad commentary.

Mario Kart Wii Review

Three and a half stars out of five

The new Mario Kart for the Wii is good, and I guess that’s my biggest complaint with it, as Mario Kart’s not supposed to be good, it’s supposed to be great. And too many factors—a few so-so tracks, a busted peripheral, and the greatest sin of all, rather lackluster multiplayer—make this racing adventure a slight wrong turn in the revolutionary series.

Let me get my biggest complaint with the game out of the way early. The new steering wheel that comes packaged with the game is an utter piece of garbage. What might seem like an innovative new way to play your favorite kart racer, turns out to be a tremendous misfire on Nintendo’s part, as it’s too cumbersome and twitchy to use in any competition outside of the easy as Pong 50cc cup.

What’s so bad about it is its nonresponsiveness and lack of stabilization in heated battles. Sure, when the area’s clear and you’re sitting pretty in first place, it’s all fine and dandy (Which is why I said it’s okay to use in the 50cc cup), but when the whole track is packed with other racers vying for first place, you’ll find yourself slingshooting yourself all over the place just trying to get yourself back into racing position. I’ll give it to Nintendo, though, it was a good idea, it just didn’t work out quite as they expected. Oh, well, at least the game controls as nicely as you’d expect with the old-timey Gamecube controller, which worked wonders yet again in Super Smash Bros. Brawl only a few weeks ago. The only problem is, and maybe it’s just because I haven’t figured it out yet, but you can’t do any tricks if you’re using the GC controller, and can only pull them off if you’re using the new Wii steering wheel. Lame.

But the wheel’s not the only problem with the game, not by a long shot. Another concern is the twelve racers on the track instead of eight, which adds to the mess and confusion and, sad to say, higher frequency of being bombed by a blasted blue shell, which threw me to near insanity more times than I could count when I was knocked from first place all the way to eighth in literally the blink of an eye.

Also of note is the fact that some of the tracks are just plain lame (Moo Moo Meadows equals yuck), but at least there are a lot of tracks (32 in total, 16 new, 16 old but updated) to tide you over for quite some time.

And then there are the bikes, which I absolutely love since they add a whole new dimension to the rip rollicking action. Shifting into turns with the speedy bikes is an absolute blast, and it’s fun to watch Toad go flying off into the stratosphere when Bowser comes around a corner with a mushroom, knocking him high into the sky. I also like a majority of the tracks in the game (Maple Treeway and the new Rainbow Road are my absolute favorite tracks ever), and dig how intricate they are. When compared to the older, retro tracks that can be found in the game, you start to wonder what the great appeal was for some of the N64 and SNES tracks, as they’re only about 40 seconds long. If anything, at least they’re a nice reminder of your childhood when life used to be simpler and gas was cheaper.

I’ll have to give a major thumbs down to the battle tracks, though. Even though there are many of them, both old and new, it just seems like they’ve grown past their welcome. And multiplayer, always the greatest highlight for the series in my opinion, actually pales in comparison to the surprisingly deep single player mode, which adds a great deal of difficulty to the later cups in the game.

Also of note is the lame online feature, which I was heavily looking forward to early on in the game’s development. Playing its online feature is pretty much like playing the computer as it actually feels that soulless. Like all Wii games built with the online feature in mind, you’re not allowed to communicate with anybody verbally. It makes for a pretty bland experience that you won’t be enjoying as much as you might have planned.

As you can see, I have mixed feelings about the game, which was never a problem I’ve ever had with any of the other Mario Kart titles in the series. Ever. But I guess that’s just because I expect greatness from it, and for the first time in the history of the series, that greatness has been slightly sullied. Don’t get me wrong, though, definitely buy this game (Like you haven’t already), but heed these words—Mario Kart Wii is good, but not great. The sooner you get that through your lemon-colored cranium, the sooner you can get to start having fun with this flawed, albeit fun, little racer that could.

Now That Mario Kart is out, I officially Have Nothing To Look Forward to on the Wii

Let’s face it, the Wii’s not a very good system. And while I know I’m going to be tugging on quite a few rabid fan boy’s dog chains with that last statement, let’s all admit it together—the Wii really is a piece of garbage.

The graphics are last gen, the controller is more a novelty than anything else, and the games for it are mostly crap with pretty packaging.

Hey, it hurts me just as much to say it as it does for you to hear it, because I’m a Nintendo fanboy, too, always have been, and, even with the unbearably crummy Wii, always will be. Ipso, facto.

But with the release of the recent Mario Kart (Read my review—I’m not entirely pleased with it), I ask you fellow fanboy, what’s there to look forward to now that all the great first-party titles are already out? As has been the case for the last two or three Nintendo systems, the power of the house of N has always been in their first party software, as gaming staples like Mario, and, to a slightly lesser extent, Metroid and Pikmin were the only really great reasons to get excited for anything on Nintendo’s horizon as those were the only good games that would come out for the system.

Wait, let me correct myself with that last sentence. Nintendo’s first party games were not good, they were great, and they made me (and millions of others), into the die hard Nintendo fanboy that I am today.

It’s the third party stuff that I’ve always been worried about for the system, and that’s all I can see far and wide for the rest of the year for Nintendo.

Let’s see, what’s coming out soon? Dream Pinball 3D? Space Chimps? Don King Presents: Prizefighter?!?! Does THIS sound like the roster of a system that was meant to thrive?

Sure, Steven Speilberg’s heavily consulted, Boom Blox might be a fun little diversion, but will I rush home to play it like a Mario Galaxy or a Smash Bros. Brawl? I don’t think you’d have to be a gambling man to answer a swift and easy, “no.”

The fact of the matter is this—Nintendo put all of its eggs in one closely knit basket, and now they have to deal with the fact that casual gamers can only play Wii Sports, Mario Kart, and the probably going to be a hit, Wii Fit for so long before they start to get tired of them and want something more.

And as much as I’d hate to say it, I guess that’s where the Playstation 3 comes in. Metal Gear Solid 4 is going to be, well, huge, and if Nintendo had only gotten Solid Snake to stick around a little longer after his Smash Bros. Brawl cameo, well, well thenwe may have been in business. But as of right now, Nintendo is a sinking ship, and we fanboys are the only passengers who are going to stick around, even after the hull has reached its dead weight sandy bottom.

Botched Review

Rich Knight
Not Rated
DVD
94 minutes
Starring: Stephen Dorff, Jamie Foreman, Geoff Bell, and Jamie Murray
Directed by: Kit Ryan
Produced by: Terrence Ryan, Ken Tuohy, and Steve Richards
Written by: Raymond Friel, Eamon Friel, and Derek Boyle
Darclight Films
Subtitles: English, French, and Spanish


Torture porn, or, shackle and maim films, if you will, have yet to receive due treatment in the comedic spoof genre. Zombie films have Shaun of the Dead, and once prominent Japanese horror movies have laughably bad American counterparts to fill the void, but torture porn has sadly been forgotten in the great scheme of things. Sadly, if Botched was meant to be that comedic offering, then the title alone speaks for itself—this movie was definitely botched.

The movie: 2 stars

Some of the best comedies were actually intended to be horror movies. Sam Raimi realized that his campy-by-first-wink hero, Bruce Campbell, would be much more effective if he actually did wink at the camera, and George A. Romero milked comedy for every drop he could with his satirical/outlandish epics about zombies in military bases and shopping malls. But these were budding directors who wound up making far better things (Well, Raimi, anyway), and fostered their comedic chops with these seminal releases.

Not so with Kit Ryan, though, whose directorial debut, Botched, tries so very hard to be something it’s not—a well paced horror spoof with equal amounts of guts and guffaws. Instead, we get a laughless romp featuring Stephen Dorff and a villain who prances about on his tippy toes before he swings a medieval sword directly at somebody’s throat. Add to the fact that this unrated movie is virtually tame enough to receive a standard R-Rating, and you have a movie that’s not even gory enough to sustain the interest of those who would even be interested in watching this kind of movie in the first place. In the end, both comedy fans and horror nuts will ultimately be disappointed.

The story is about a down on his luck thief named Ritchie who’s been asked to steal a precious golden cross from an ordinary looking building after he botched (hee hee, get it?) a diamond heist with a couple of his cronies. The thing is, this ordinary looking building has a mysterious 13th floor where the heir of Ivan the Terrible resides and enjoys attacking and maiming victims who happen to stumble upon his floor.

I know, hilarious, right?

Plot’s not everything, though, and this film could have been salvaged from being a total wreck if the cast of characters trapped on the deletrious 13th floor with Dorff had more spunk and charisma, but they don’t. Instead, they wind up leaving you astonished by how banal and un-funny they are, and I actually found myself losing track of the plot when I started counting how many times I rolled my eyes at the movie’s terrible jokes—Note, I eventually stopped when the eye rolling count reached 23.

We first get a taste of this slapdash cast when we’re introduced to Stephen Dorff, who made such a delicious villain in the original Blade movie. In this film, though, you feel that his gruff, covered in stumble mouth could have easily been replaced by an even tougher badass, like Ray Liota or Jason Statham. The thing is, even though both of those aforementioned actors have both appeared in far worse films (*Cough*, Dungeon Seige *End cough*), I still have a hard time believing that either actor would actually take this role since it’s so forgettablly lost in the shuffle of the other horrible characters.

Take Peter (played byJamie Foreman) for instance. As a tough talking, course Russian accented loose canon, you’d think he’d steal the show with his boasting and bravado, but when he says lines like, “I am not Santa Clause, and this is not Christmas,” you feel that you want to chuckle, but just can’t bring yourself to do it. It really sounds better on paper

Or, Boris, for example, a security guard who obviously has delusions of grandeur and keeps proclaiming “Alpha Male,” as if he were Flava Flav and saying his own name for the umpteenth time. You want to laugh at his reckless attempts to save the day, but find yourself merely smiling rather than slapping your knee and throwing your popcorn up in the air you’re laughing so hard. The jokes are there, but they just aren’t strong enough to sustain your interest for very long.

That doesn’t mean this film is all bad, though. There are a few scenes in the movie that I thought were pretty funny, one involving a very upset Peter smacking his brother around because he (his brother) wants to eat a sandwich during a hostage negotiation. But the laughs are just too few and far between, and the violence is too tame to excite the typical blood lusting horror fan. Director Kit Ryan has a long, uphill battle ahead of him if he wants to catch up with the big boys like Raimi or Romero, as this offbeat slasher debut just doesn’t make the cut.

The Disc

1 Star

Special features? What special features? This Unrated version of the film has nary a single one other than scene selection and subtitles.

If anything, that’s the funniest joke in the entire package—a modern day DVD that doesn’t even have any special features. Not even a theatrical trailer. Now, that’s what I call scary.