I'm from the community of The Woodlands, Texas, an affluent suburb about 30 miles north of Houston. As a film nerd, I was always excited to see the only "major" motion picture movie to be filmed in my town, that being The Bracelet Of Bordeaux. I remember when it came out, many of my middle school friends were talking about being in the background, or that their houses or streets could be seen in the distance. After over a decade of curiosity, I finally tracked down the only production from my hometown...and it's sadly not only a bad movie, but one of the worst movies I've ever seen.
Not a single solitary aspect of this film is good. I suppose the two young child protagonists are passable, but that's about it. The production quality looks like an effortless middle school project made by two slackers, like it was filmed on a $50 Flip camera bought at Walmart. Youtube videos look better than this. The villains are over the top and completely pointless with no real motives beyond just being poorly written villains (the Italian mob teaming with generic metalhead punks? What?). The script is horrible, the jokes are cringeworthy, and everything else I haven't mentioned yet is just abysmal. On top of everything, it's just excruciatingly boring. It became a chore to watch this film after just 10 minutes. There's also a two minute long dog fart battle...I don't think I need to explain why that's a bad thing.
It becomes so bad that it stops being funny, and instead becomes a trance-inducing film coma of swirling chaos, something not even the worst shrooms could give. I mostly blame the horrendous grainy home-camera cinematography, but the terrible writing, acting, and humor all blend together to create a pool of depression, like an everflowing stream of hallucinogenic fluff.
Not to mention all the Texas stereotypes. I'm sure most northerners or foreigners don't know this, but most Texans don't wear the cliché cowboy hat and boots, especially in modern upper class community like The Woodlands, where the official community uniform might as well be Vineyard Vines or Hollister. Most Woodlanders would laugh at the sight of a cowboy hat. As you'd expect, every other male character in this film wears a giant cowboy hat and boots with spurs, spewing out cliché slang like "HOWDY Y'ALL?" and "WHAT IN TARNATION!" You'd think that, because the movie was filmed in Texas, they'd see that nobody actually dressed or talked like that. The only thing missing is a shootout at high noon and a brawl in the saloon. At least it doesn't take place in the desert.
So everything is terrible, right? Well, we still haven't discussed the worst part of the movie: the production itself. The film was made by Frank Eakin, who, according to people I've interviewed and reports I've read online, claimed to be a big Hollywood hotshot and would "make The Woodlands the next Hollywood". He claimed the film would be a massive budget fantasy film on the same scale as The Chronicles Of Narnia, and because of that, said that all extras had to pay $250 for the blessing of being in a major blockbuster. After filming wrapped, Eakin and crew fled town and gave no updates on the film for 3 years, making the town believe that they had been scammed. Finally, after 3 years of locals raging about their wasted money, the film suddenly appeared out of nowhere, not in theaters, but in local video shops. Instead of the massive scale blockbuster they were promised, they received a crappy low budget home video with terrible effects, awful jokes, and wasted community effort. On top of that, many of the kids who paid $250 to appear in the film had their scenes cut entirely and appear nowhere in the deleted scenes or extras. However, it doesn't end there. When parents went to IMDb to vent their frustrations, they found that their comments and reviews were flagged and deleted, and were replaced by several clearly fake reviews praising the film and, in particular, gloating about how amazing and talented Frank Eakin is. Go and read them for yourself and see if you think they're real or not. If this review mysteriously gets deleted, you'll know the truth.
So, what's the lesson here? Don't lie to a community about making a horrible passion project, because your film may end up being one of the worst films ever made. The Woodlands is a beautiful community with a plethora of interesting things and it deserves much better than a movie about magical farting dogs.
