I have been thinking about resurrecting this old column for a while now. The need to occupy my mind and keep my typing skills fresh for the annual 31 For 31 has brought me here. So, back from the great beyond of terrible movies, I am happy to say that CinemApocalypse is back.
First, let’s lay out some ground “rules” for this. The movies I will review were all randomly given to me by “Reelgood Roulette” which is a site that spits out random movies on streaming services. For the most part, I am going to look for movies in Action, Horror, Comedy, Thriller … pretty much everything other than documentary or romance. That is for my own sanity. Second, I am going to attempt to look for movies that aren’t well known, and/or sub-par. Probably no higher or at least not much higher than a middling review score on IMDB or Rotten Tomatoes. That’s it. That’s all the rules.
So here is the first post in a column back from the dead, naturally titled “Twice Dead”.
The Cates family recently learned they inherited the mansion of a relative that recently died. He was an eccentric stage actor and he died under… strange circumstances. They arrive to discover that the mansion has been “taken over” as a flophouse for a local street gang. Running the gang off the property they think is their own is only the first problem. Once they are gone (but far from out of the picture) the family (or at least the two kids) realize that there is something just as, if not more, sinister staying in the house with them.
When I say I have seen a lot of bad horror movies in the past ten years, it’s not an exaggeration. Some movies were so bad that I literally could not bring myself to finish. Twice Dead isn’t even close to those. It’s bad, make no mistake, but its real problem is that it is far more mediocre, and that makes it almost worse. At no point would I say that this movie ever “went for it” in any category. It’s not extremely bloody. It’s not over-the-top campy. It doesn’t have a lot of cursing or even nudity. The plot is okay at best and is more a mix of Home Alone and Poltergeist than any true horror movie.
What I will say this movie has going for it was two-fold. The actor and actress that were playing the brother and sister, Scott and Robin, had more sexual tension in their scenes than I have seen in most romances. You can just see that after each day this movie wrapped they were just banging it up off stage. Good lord. The way they look and talk to each other is NOT something the way a real brother and sister interact. Secondly, the man bad guy (that wasn’t a cheap knockoff of Vincent Price’s ghost) is just wonderful to look at. Not in a sexual way, but he looks like if Adam Scott and Crispin Glover had a baby. Also, his wardrobe and hairstyle SCREAM that he just stepped off the set of Lost Boys. At one point I had convinced myself that he was, in fact, the same actor and had to check his IMDB as well.
Twice Dead is not a good movie. It’s not even a bad movie. That’s maybe the most damning thing I can say about it. It just kinda… is a movie. It stars almost no one except Todd “Different Strokes” Bridges and Raymond “Joey Six” Cruz It’s streaming on Amazon Prime if you really want to watch it though.
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