One Star Classics

“La, la la, goes the mushroom credence; if you eat us, you will be us.”

So goes the ominous final line of “Mushroom Credence” from Stuntz's Blue Leg Expedition's highly underrated Traveling by Spores. It's a mushroom themed album, but, as one might already have gathered, one not about chanterelles.

Which brings us (very elegantly, I might add) to Shrooms. This was one of the first movies I added to my Netflix streaming queue (or My List as it's now called) way back when, but I didn't get around to watching it until recently. And the red flags started waving right off the bat.

First, in what surely must be some sort of record, there are nine production companies involved with this movie. Fair enough, I suppose; I guess they had financing issues. More disconcerting is the premise of the plot: A group of kids traveling from the US to Ireland for the sole, stated purpose of doing shrooms? I mean, fine, I'm not one to judge, but paying for a cross-continental flight just to get high does not make this a particularly sympathetic group.

Yes, the red flags are hoisted early on, but thankfully things do change for the better.

For one thing, Shrooms is pretty dang beautiful to watch. The use of colors and filming… Very nice. It's a well shot movie.

The dialogue, too, is well-written, but while the story is fairly engrossing, it also treads too far into predictable territories:

Out there in the woods, doing shrooms, the main character accidentally pops a super shroom and miraculously survives the trip… Is she now actually seeing the future, as the legend of the super shroom suggests? Visions of her friends being murdered–in an extremely original twist–by a patient from a closed down asylum? Bodies piling up? Is any of it even happening?! Is she simply tripping?! Who knows?! She's on super shrooms!

Frankly, I had hoped this super shroom thing would have made the movie a bit more psychedelic than it actually is. All in all it's fairly straight forward in a Blair Witch type of way (kids hunted in the woods by… someone? something? nothing?), with a dash of Deliverance (inbred locals), finished off with the sensibilities of Ringu. Not a bad combination, but they could have taken it a bit further. Fair is fair, though: the talking cow scene is pretty awesome.

But yeah, that whole closed down asylum plot point is sorta played out by now, and it gets shifty when there are shots almost directly lifted from Session 9. In the end, everything gets a bit predictable, but you know what? I do not care!

Shrooms is an elegant movie, and it's pretty creepy to boot. The dialogue is amusing at times, and not in an involuntary kind of way. It's all presented in a beautiful package, and it really is an enjoyable film.

So, I might not be an actual shrooms type of person, and as I have nothing good to end on, I'll just present you my go-to mushroom recipe:

Cook chopped carrots and celery over medium heat until they start softening, then add chopped onions. As the onions start to turn translucent, add chopped mushroom, and fold them into the mirepoix. Give it about five minutes, and add cream, salt, and pepper to taste. Reduce heat to a simmer, and let thicken until done. Tastes great the next day, too!

The Trailer

The worst of the movies you find on Netflix tend to be something you, if nothing else, can laugh at. Even Pinocchio's Revenge (so awesome we named Pinocchio the patron saint of this site) was downright hilarious.

Then there's Mongolian Death Worm…

I'm not entirely sure what this is supposed to be. A parody? A straight forward action movie? Yet another Tremors sequel? I don't know! It just is, and the only real reason I didn't turn it off, was that I was hoping to get some sort of epiphany while watching it.

If anything, I suppose, Mongolian Death Worm tries to be Star Wars set in Mongolia, which sounds weird, but oddly seems to be what it is.

The quick synopsis: Han Solo is looking for Genghis Khan's lost treasure, while trying to keep Jabba the Hut and his bounty hunters off his back. Princess Leia, against her better judgement, rides along with him, delivering sassy one-liners, while C-3PO does hist classic C-3PO thing.

Trust me, the similarities are more striking than you might think. (There are also some echoes between the eponymous worms and the aliens from Aliens, making me think the producers really wanted to set this movie in space.)

There's some nonsense in here about Mongolian death worms waking to protect Genghis Khan's grave from robbers, and one has to ask oneself how the rest of the world doesn't know about these creatures. I guess it might come down to there only being about fifteen people in Mongolia, or at least that is how this movie depicts it.

Mongolian Death Worm was filmed in Texas, and it shows, all the way down to the sheriff in his 501s and pick-up truck. Portrayed by George Cheung in what has to be the worst acting job of this millenia (Sean Patrick Flanery as Han Solo comes in as a close second), I have no idea what Walker, Texas Ranger is doing in Mongolia in the first place.

I can whine and complain, but really, there just isn't anything that happens in the movie… There is some driving around… Then you see some giant worms… The worms are either shot or they eat somebody… Then there's a final showdown. And that's it. I can't even think of any snarky comments. This thing should never have made its way onto television.

Because that's what it is: a made for television movie. That means somebody actually sat down, watched it, commercials and all, for more than three hours. (Or so I assume–surely it was packed with commercial breaks?) I truly would like to meet that somebody and shake her/his hand. I'm glad there are two of us who made it all the way through the movie.

The Trailer

Let's be clear about one thing here: The reason Would You Rather is a great movie is not so much that it's a great movie. No, the reason Would You Rather is a great movie, is that Jeffrey Combs–per usual–is great in it.

This is a film that in many ways reminds me of the Vincent Price classic, House on Haunted Hill. (Somewhat, but not too interestingly, Combs appeared not just in the remake, but also in its sequel, Return to House on Haunted Hill. Yes, apparently it warranted a sequel.) The premise of an eccentric millionaire inviting a group of people to a dinner party, with the promise of huge sums of money for partaking in a bizarre game? It's a recycled concept, but it's still good.

The twist, of sorts, is that the game is actually a game. More specifically, would you rather, which, not shockingly, takes on a rather cruel twist.

A promising premise, and while the movie is fairly morbid, it never reaches the graphic heights (or lows) of Saw and Hostel. Had it ever reached the theaters, it could easily have passed a PG-13 rating with a bit of editing. But I digress.

Like previously mentioned, Combs ups this movie to awesome, gleefully portraying the host as both a gentleman and an entitled sadist (not unlike Price in House on Haunted Hill). His turn in Re-Animator might have firmly stuck him in a vortex of typecasting and voice acting, but if he can spend the remainder of his career hamming it up like this… Start up the entertainment train, as that'd benefit us all.

I don't know, maybe I'm just a sucker for the macabre, but I kinda enjoyed seeing what crazy challenges the host would come up with next. Having a vegetarian eat a steak for $10,000? What a butt!

There are many things that could have gone wrong with Would You Rather–for god's sake, it stars and is produced by Brittany Snow–but it keeps entertaining all the way until the semi-surprising end. It leaves room for a sequel too!

And we all know he'll be there: Jeffrey Combs, cursing out a life of typecasting, his only solace being his fans flocking around Netflix, watching obscure straight-to-video gold.

The Trailer

The first Cube movie is somewhat well-know, at least in relative terms. I'm pretty sure your parents aren't aware of its existence, and from certain perspectives one could argue that's a good thing. Acquired taste for sci-fi and all that.

For whatever reason, precious few know about the two other entries in the Cube trilogy. That's right: Flawed as the first one might have been, the producers jumped straight in, giving it two more tries.

Was it worth the time and money? Well…

Cube

It might be flawed in every sense of the word–eh acting, cheesy dialogue, and less than stellar effects–but I quite like the first Cube. A group of people finding themselves stuck in a large structure made up of multiple cubes? Each cube with six exits, all leading to seemingly identical cubes, some with death traps? It's a fairly fascinating concept, what with the prisoners(?) not knowing why they're there, nor what they're actually trapped inside of.

The film was made on a cheap budget, and there was actually only one cube used throughout the filming. Still, the fact that each cube is identical–all industrial and creepy–enhances the feeling of claustrophobia, and it's fun seeing what solutions the group comes up with to find their way out of the maze.

Stilted dialogue and community theater quality acting aside, I would recommend this movie to anyone interested in dystopian stories.

Cube²: Hypercube

I can only assume the first movie made a big enough profit for a sequel to seem like a good idea. Cube really ended on the type of question mark it should have ended on, and setting up two sequels with a whole new team… Not a brilliant idea.

That's not to say Hypercube is a bad movie in its own right: the special effects budget clearly got a fair boost this time around. There are some half-hearted attempts to tie this film to its prequel, but let's be honest–the concept is pretty much the only thing that connects the two movies.

I mean, not even the cubes look or feel the same. Whereas Cube was set in a gritty, industrial maze, Hypercube has a stark, clean, white feel to it. Think Scandinavian bathroom design, and you get the idea.

The cubes are also made up of multiple dimensions crashing together, and characters meet other versions of themselves, and I have no idea… Smart people might find some sort of logic in this, but my guess is that it was all made up on a whim. It's an entertaining enough movie, but the unsettling dystopian feel of Cube is sorely lacking.

Cube Zero

Just for a second, Zero tries to tie Hypercube to the first movie in a halfhearted manner, and then kinda just drops it. Which is fine. Zero is a true sequel (or, as it is, prequel) to Cube, and the industrial dystopian feel is back in full force.

The problem, however, is that it's mostly a vehicle to explain the first movie, which just doesn't work. We don't see a whole lot of what's happening inside the cube, and instead learn of the people controlling it. That takes away from the original's creepiness, and I highly doubt the creators of Cube had a plot like this in mind.

Still, bonus points have to be given to the actors. Particularly Michael Riley shines (in all relativity) as a sadistic… cube… overseer? I have no idea what he actually is supposed to be…

I'm not a fan of movies that try to explain (in this case somewhat) mind-bending prequels, and would put Zero a step below Hypercube in terms of overall quality. It just seems like a pointless movie.

Looking at the trilogy, then, I found Cube to be a nice unsettling little film. In all technical manners, it is flawed, but the story and atmosphere hold up. Its two sequels? Hypercube is worth a look, if only for its stark white prettiness. And if you sat through two of them, you might as well take your chances with Zero. You might enjoy it more than I did.

I've heard some loose rumors of a Cube 4, and I question how good of an idea that is. Still, I'm sure it won't make it to theaters, and rather go straight to Netflix, so I guess I'd give it a shot, just to be a completionist.

The Trailer