Banandar

To call "Ax 'Em" the worst movie in the history of motion pictures would be too easy. Because that would imply that it's unwatchable, which on so many levels it is. Yet it's the absolute utter incompetence on all levels, from the direction to the script to the acting, that makes it just so damn entertaining, because you are simply stupified that anyone thought this could ever make a coherent film. If you enjoy watching a film for its mistakes, "Ax 'Em" will never leave your DVD player, because from the mis-spelled words and incomprehsible grammar, to the nonsensical ending 72 minutes later, "Ax 'Em" proves that no matter how incompetent you are with a video camera, someone will distribute it.

What makes this film so wonderfully special is that the director's father, Kweisi Mfume, was a U.S. Congressman, and former head of the NAACP! There are moments of D.W. Griffith-esque racism that were they not made by a filmmaker of color, would pass as a scenes from a training video for the Klan. It is nearly impossible to understand what anyone says, simply because the video camera is set up for a wide shot, and nobody talks anywhere near a microphone. The film, if you could call it that, makes no sense on any level, but moments like the fat guy walking around in the back of one shot holding the slate will have you laughing for hours.

This is bad filmmaking at its best. Thank you, Michael Mfume, for this wonderful gift.

"Fear No Evil" combines two of my favorite genres: Horror and Hannah-Barberra animation. I did not expect the film to turn into a cartoon in the last ten minutes, but apparently the producers couldn't get any real special effects wizzards for the final confrontation between Satan and God's angels, so they got the animators from "The Wonder Twins." What starts as a bloody battle turns into mind-bogglingly bad laser beams that literally look like they were taken from a late 60's sci-fi film. The film then takes off into what one might call "Xanadu" territory," where the actors are no longer on film, and we see a series of lights flashing at the screen to crazy music. I guess the filmmakers were going for a "2001" type effect here, but what they got was a discount version of the old HBO animation they ran before movies in 1982.

The film is a mixture of pretentious, poorly-acted, poorly-scripted, and shoddily directed discussions about heaven and hell, with some brilliant early 80's high school scenes, set to the music of the Sex Pistols, Talking Heads, and The Ramones. It makes you wonder how a director who is so completely out of touch with how to make an interesting horror film could assemble such a brilliant soundtrack. The high school scenes are worth the rental: all the guys look like they're 30, all the girls have giant afros and yellow satin jackets, and the teachers have tweed jackets. The one stoke of genius on director Frank LaLoggia's part is to have a number of scenes with "general chatter," where people aren't really speaking any lines specific, but are just hubbub-ing very enthusiastically. The first time we see this LaLoggian touch is when baby Satan is born in 1963, and the proud father is handing out cigars to his buddy. They are babbling like a bunch of chimps, yet you cannot understand a word they're saying. It's amazing - you think they're speaking another language, it's just a lot of "Heeeeey! Wheeeeaaaay! Yaaaahaaaa! Cigar, cigar, cigar, whoooooaaaa hoooooo!" The next time is after a gym class, which apparently went so well that all the teens run into the locker room indecipherably yelling "whoo-hoo, alllriiiiight, yeeeeeah, gimme that locker, whooooaaaa hoooooo!"

This unique touch of Frank LaLoggia, a trademark in all two of his films, truly gives weight to the credit "A Frank LaLoggia Film" that appears before the main title. It definitely is, Frank. It definitely is.

I saw "Prophecy" when I was seven years old, and like other reviewers, were terrified by the camping scene, where a father and his two kids are mauled by a bear-like creature. The same scene today is truly one of the funniest, and worst, scenes in a horror film ever. What once was a terrifying monster who would gave me nightmares is now a man in a rubbery mutant bear suit.

"Prophecy" represents the worst aspects of 70's horror filmmaking. It is one of those films geared towards adults, which means that about 2/3 of the movie are filled with lengthy, painful dialogue about social issues and the environment. You can see the executives at Paramount brainstorming this one, saying, "We need a 'Friday the 13th' for adults," so they get John Frankenheimer to direct it and an all star cast of Talia Shire and Richard Dysart. Frankenheimer clearly lost either his mind or all of his money when he made this film, because the terror scenes are nothing short of embarrassing, and the dialogue scenes feel like they're from a completely different movie. It's serious social commentary about the state of affairs in the late 70's, mixed in with Godzilla-esque fight scenes.

The one merit I will say about "Prophecy" is that it is VERY 70's. The clothes, the hair, and especially Robert Foxworth's James Brolin-esque beard. The beard alone at least brings it up to one star.