Number 86: Seven Mummies (2006)
After the last couple of movies I’ve had to sit through,
it’s a relief to be back on familiar territory with a good-old, straight
forward American horror story.
And this is as straight forward as they come, it’s a
straight rip-off of From Dusk Til Dawn.
Six criminals (one of them is the spitting image of Chris
Hemsworth, I had to look up the credits to find it wasn’t actually him) are
being transported across Arizona when their prison van is involved in an
accident. The run out across the desert, taking the pretty female guard with
them. She really only exists for eye-candy.
They come across Danny Trejo (please Danny, get a better
agent) who fulfils his customary exposition role, telling them the legend of
some gold buried out in the desert. Not surprisingly, our gang go out looking
for it.
They come across a town that time forgot where everyone is
from the old West, which is a bit odd. They have a good time at the local
saloon until the sun goes down when (remember what I said about From Dusk Til Dawn?) they all turn into
vampires and go on a blood frenzy.
We then see the criminals try to survive the night but with
the requisite number of gruesome deaths. They do find the gold but it’s being
guarded by a group of vampires, sorry, mummies who fight them off. One of them
escapes on a motorcycle with the girl and the pursuing mummy bursting into
flame in the sunlight. As mummies are prone to do.
I haven’t given the names of any of the characters but that
is with good reason. They are all so bland and terrible, they have forfeited
the right to names.
Save yourself the time and just watch From Dusk Til Dawn instead. It’s a much better film than this mediocre horror movie.
Number 85: Car 54, Where Are You? (1994)
This is a movie based on a sit-com from the 60’s, it came out just pre-Charlie’s Angels era when reviving old TV shows became a really big thing
in Hollywood.
I’d like to say this paved the way for that (or do I want to
say that?) but I would clearly be lying. Nostalgia can be a dangerous thing and
the producers of this comedy where clearly hoping there was enough people with
fond memories of the original to make this a success. I don’t know much about
the series, so I can only really judge based from this movie.
So this follows the streetwise cop Officer Tooty, played by
David Johansen (who couldn’t be more from Brooklyn if he tried), and his new
partner the straight-laced Officer Muldoon, played by John C McGinlay (better
known these days for his role as Dr. Cox in Scrubs).
Muldoon follows the law to the book, issuing citations for the most minor
offences (including a blind man for jaywalking).
Tooty tries to loosen him up, arranging him a date and
taking out to nightclubs. Their assigned to protect a witness in a mob case but
end up losing him.
They find him but are chased by the mafia led by Daniel
Baldwin (the weakest of the Baldwin brothers). The chase takes them through
Coney Island, riding on rollercoasters (it’s a rollercoaster ride you see?) and
through the tunnel of love. They get the witness back and capture the criminal.
It might have worked out a bit better if they'd made it a few years later when a little more care (for the most part) was being taken with old TV franchises.
There are a couple of decent jokes in it, Penn and Teller make an amusing cameo but on the whole
it’s more like one of the later Police Academy sequels, when they started
getting really bad. Yeah, that bad.
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