At one point during "Space," the undeniable low point in The X-Files rocky first season, Mulder turns to his partner and says, "Come on, Scully, you have to admit that was exciting."
If you need some cheese served by Satan, Voodoo Moon is your flick
Look, I knew what I was getting into with Voodoo Moon. The title alone has a "kill it with fire" feel, and the Netflix reviews were none too kind. But Pop Punishment is all about embracing the bad, and that means low-budget straight-to-DVD clunkers, too. I will say that I judge movies like Voodoo Moon by a different…
It's never too late to be pissed off about Halle Berry's Gothika
Did Halle Berry fire her agent after Monster's Ball? I could easily look this up, but I prefer to speculate. It's frankly baffling that she followed up her Academy Award-winning turn in the indie hit with Die Another Day, Gothika, and Catwoman-all of which qualify for inclusion in this column. (Note that I'm leaving…
The true enemy of Fright Night is the weirdly sincere Fright Night II
Diehard fans of the 1985 Fright Night are likely wondering what they've done to deserve yet another Hollywood reboot. But the new Colin Farrell-ed Fright Night isn't the real enemy here. The worst Fright Night retread is the 1989 sequel, Fright Night II, which pits original heroes Charley (William Ragsdale) and Peter…
What Dreams May Come manages to make heaven suck
The best thing about What Dreams May Come is that its title sounds like a porn parody of itself. I guess it also has the distinction of not being the worst movie in which Robin Williams plays a doctor, though I'd say What Dreams May Come is almost as terrible as Patch Adams-perhaps even more disappointing, if you…
Eco-horror cheesefest Frogs has the most misleading title ever
I can't overstress how misleading the title Frogs is. This is a film ostensibly about killer frogs, in which the frogs don't really do any of the killing. To be fair, they are a constant presence-lurking in every shot and ribbiting their way into your nightmares. (Honestly, without amphibian reaction shots the movie…
Volcano may be the most disastrous disaster movie of all time
In the good old days — before the epic scale of Roland Emmerich's 2012 and everything Michael Bay is responsible for in the past decade — we had simpler, more contained disaster movies. Apocalypse, schmocalypse: 1997's Volcano focuses solely on a volcano destroying Los Angeles.
Solarbabies gives eco-science fiction a bad name
I can't say I was expecting great things from a film called Solarbabies. Despite a pretty impressive cast-or, OK, a pretty impressively ‘80s cast-I'd never heard of it. And as I watched the dated sci-fi flick, I realized there was probably a reason for that. Solarbabies is flat-out bizarre, and not in the fun,…
The Problem with Taking Flesh-Eating Babies Too Seriously
Babies are scary. Yeah, okay, they're cute when they're not crying, and they smell nice as long as their diapers aren't full. But overall, they're squawking little beasts who grow like parasites inside women, before bursting out covered in blood.
In which our critic wishes for more of last summer's supernatural…
I'm not much of an outdoor kid, so when it comes to summer, the things I look forward to most are the big, dumb movies and the trashtastic TV shows. Some of these guilty pleasures are better than others, but come fall, most seem like bizarre heatstroke-induced dreams. ABC's The Gates was one of those "Did this actually …
