Sunday, August 13, 2017

The Overlook Theatre Reviews: Bloodmarsh Krackoon

0 of 5 viewers "Liked" "Bloodmarsh Krackoon" (1989, USA)
Here's what the creatures had to say:

Lord Battle - "Monsters are cool because they're not. They have no friends, are usually ugly, and only ironically drive sports cars, shoot guns, and get the girl at the end of the film. This is why I grew up loving monsters, I relate to them. What I hate is cool guy culture. Fast cars and faster women (whatever the fuck that means) culture. But what I hate more than anything is when cool guy culture bleeds into my indie monster movie. Bloodmarsh Krackoon features hitmen in a way I thought only Krampus 2: The Devil Returns could. Actually no, Krampus 2 was a lot of fun and even though the Krampus was barely in it. The Devil Returns still took a Tarantino stylized genre trope and misfired so badly that it was a ton of fun to watch and has become something I'll revisit every Christmas. The Krackoon however was a laborious wade through a ton of bad "cool guy" dialogue that never even approaches fun and does absolutely nothing for an audience that would purchase, let alone watch a film like Bloodmarsh Krackoon. I will say that I am still excited to see the original feature Krackoon which they include on the DVD. I'm hoping it will be the micro budget film I was looking for, not a micro budget "The Wire" who sometimes guest starred a puppet." - 1 Star

Dabbles - "I really wanted to walk out. But I had nowhere to go. It was trying to be clever, while painful acting and pacing needed to be worked on. This was the first time I wish I fell asleep, because sleep is definitely better than this movie. But it got an extra star because the puppet was cool and funny." - 2 Stars

Huntress - "Bloodmarsh Krackoon is one of those movies that completely messes with your perception of time. Ten minutes feels like an hour in this strange universe, where all you want is for some crazy monsters to appear and wreck everyone around but instead you get corrupt politicians and gang wars thrown together in a collage of confusion. And on top of all that it was boring!" - 1.5 Stars

Math Mage - "The theme song set my expectations too high. This film was a slog. The hadorable (horrible + adorable, like Gibble the Pokemon) hand puppets were excellent. Some terrible films are clearly about something and you can describe the film by saying that; but if I told someone this film was about a mutant raccoon that eats people I would be lying. This film is about an assisted living facility were a gangster feigning senility is housed and he plots with two orderlies to ruin the business so he brings the ---- to build a casino. It's about the deputy (now mayor since he was killed in the last one (yes it's a direct sequel to Krackoon, which is included as a feature on the DVD)) hiring his cousin (who is a mafia hit man) to hunt the Krackoon but they instead get drunk with the chief of police?! It's also about an old woman in the facility (who is the mayor's mother) adopting a homeless boy and giving him to a nurse who finds the boy is keeping the Krackoon (finally!) and that it killed the mayor and his parents. Then the Krackoon mutates into a werewolf to get revenge on a random guy who stepped on its baby?! Do not watch this film." - 1 Star

Trash - "Oh hell no. This isn't for me. Who is this even for? Put me down as a walkout, I can't deal with this." - Walkout - Default 2 Stars

The Great Hornito - Walkout - Default 2 Stars



The Overlook Theatre Final Rating*
(Below is for after you've seen the film)

It was a humid Thursday evening, attendance was at its minimum for an Overlook film review. This had been the third week in a row with this particular crowd (Huntress, Dabbles, The Great Hornito, Math Mage and I) thought it would be fun to revisit our old way of selecting a film. I grabbed 3 movies that I predicted would be fun and most likely bad (in a critical sense). The films I selected to choose from were Night Hunter, Bloodmarsh Krackoon, and Quest for the Egg Salad. The popular choice was Night Hunter, but because everyone was so excited to watch it we put the film on hold for a big crowd... Quest for the Egg Salad is a very tough sell to any audience (look it up, I think it's streaming for  free on YouTube) and it will most likely play for just Math Mage and me in our new segment (more on that later) since only one person voted for it (me). That left us with Bloodmarsh Krackoon, which we were all happy with even though it was no one's first choice, simply because a micro budget film with a puppet raccoon high on crack can be many things. Certainly not boring!

As we lingered on the DVD menu (to make proper social media posts and whatnot) we slowly became endeared to the theme song playing on loop. Once the film started we were greeted with a 5 minute summary of the first film Krackoon (2010), which Bloodmarsh Krackoon is a sequel to but doesn't attempt to make clear on the DVD box at all; Krackoon is however available as a bonus feature on the DVD. Now I should mention that this lead to a brief discussion about which film we should be watching. I made a executive decision and decided we would digest the films the way they wanted us to, which I think means we watch the film on the cover of the DVD. So we fast forwarded through the recap intro and resumed the film. It was my choice to skip the "what happened on the last episode of Krackoon" portion of the film and I question whether or not that was the right choice. Because I had made the decision to go on with the sequel, I didn't want to spoil the original for everyone (and even though no one enjoyed this film we will be screening the original at some point). How was I supposed to know that the entire feature would be an attempt at a micro budget Coen Brothers film?

I know this might just seem like fun ribbing at a little horror movie's expense but if you know anything about Lord Battle it's that I couldn't be more against that. In fact, what I'm trying to articulate is that somewhere in the San Francisco Bay Area a group of 5 friends got together to watch a movie that had monetary limitations, which meant nothing to us because what we want from our stories are ideas. An earnest attempt at bringing to life ideas. The thing about making movies is it's hard, especially for the earnest micro budget film which will rarely be watched and possibly never understood. Bloodmarsh Krackoon looks like it was a lot of fun to make, and I'll leave it at that.


- Lord Battle

The Overlook Theatre materialized in a residence for a screening on 7/27/2017
*Based on the star ratings turned in by character reviewers, others viewed and got to "Dislike" or "Like" but that does not affect the rating.

No comments:

Post a Comment