My brother went to the Toronto Fan Expo a few weeks ago and I was kind of shocked to learn that John Travolta would be there. Since he appeared in Saturday Night Fever, Travolta has been a fixture on the A list. What would he be doing deigning himself to appear at a comiccon, signing autographs and meeting the little people?

This movie was why.

Moose (Travolta) is said to be autistic in the things I’ve read about the film, but he’s played here as an incredibly slow man who only finds joy in autograph hunting. This may hit too close to home for some of my friends who are taking the long trek to conventions like the one in Toronto and who often are aware of the celebrity happenings in my city to a degree that I am certain that may cross the line from fandom to outright need for legal action.

Now Moose has the opportunity to meet his favorite actor, Hunter Dunbar (Devon Sawa, Idle Hands). At the last minute, as Moose waits in line, Dunbar’s ex-wife appears and he loses his chance to get an autograph. Worse, his hero treats him like a complete jerk.

Moose’s friend, paparazzi photographer Leah, tries to make up for this by getting him invited to a celebrity party and then showing him an app that publishes the addresses of stars. Instead of just mailing a letter, Moose brings it in person and again, Dunbar reacts violently. Not getting the hint, our protagonist scales the fence around the actor’s house and walks right in. On the way in Moose accidentally kills the housekeeper, but again, Dunbar threatens and abuses Moose.

Finally, our man has had enough. He returns that night dressed as Jason Vorhees and ties Dunbar up and stabs him with a prop knife that does no damage before faking his own death. Dunbar then turns the tables and asks to be his friend, so Moose unties him. The actor goes wild, shooting off Moose’s hand and stabbing him in the eye before letting him leave. He wanders the streets of Hollywood where tourists think he’s in costume before Leah saves him. Then, Dunbar is arrested for killing his housekeeper.

Interestingly enough, Devon Sawa has gone on from playing an obsessed fan in Eminem’s “Stan” video to dealing with an obsessed fan, while Travolta had his pussy finger broken in Saturday Night Fever and now has his entire hand blown clean off. He also gets to utter timeless lines such as, “I can’t talk too long. I gotta poo.” and “Watch out. Here’s Moosey!” Seriously — he really should have followed Kirk Lazarus’ advice in Tropic Thunder before he took this role.

I lay the blame for this amazing turd of a film squarely at the feet of one Fred Durst. Not secure with merely transforming the peace and love of Woodstock into the 1999 debacle that was a nightmarish world of broken bones, open flames and sexual assault. But hey — according to a Variety article, he has no regrets. “It’s easy to point the finger and blame [us], but they hired us for what we do — and all we did is what we do,” said Dusrt. “I would turn the finger and point it back to the people that hired us.” What else would you expect from the man who did it all for the nookie, the what, the nookie? Certainly not a good film. It’s as if his epic work for Match.com commercials was an ill preparation for the subtle nuance of the story of a mentally troubled man navigating the difference between Hollywood fact and fiction. This film has all of the subtle tones and hints of genius that one would expect from the auteur who gifted us with “Break Stuff.”

Actually, Durst doesn’t deserve all the blame, despite including a scene where Sawa’s character literally talks at length to his son about how much he loves Limp Bizkit.

Travolta should know better.

Every single decision he makes as an actor in this film is wrong.

This is beyond a bad performance in a bad movie.

This is the type of film that I will return to time and again, pointing it out to say, “Truly this is as bad as it gets and all films from here on out will be measured against this movie.” I really don’t want to ruin how bad it is for you any longer, but the scene where he says, “Poppycock!” repeatedly while looking into a mirror as he wears as a English policeman costime must be experienced.

I mean, it gets so bad that the same opening credits that start the film are repeated at the end. The same exact credits. Who does this? How does this happen? Did not one single person responsible for this film stop and say, “This whole thing just feels off?”

Nope. That’s why Travolta was in Toronto.

In a year full of some films that I can point to as amongst the worst I’ve ever seen, isn’t it somewhat comforting to know that something came out that sucks worse than Serenity?

Screen icon Meg Foster (Stepfather 2, They Live, Masters of the Universe) was the draw that made me watch this film. Sadly, she only appears in the movie for a very short amount of time, but trust me. She’s the best part.

The PR materials for this film promise that it combines “traditional narrative story-telling, as well as numerous forms of pioneering technology, including found footage, hand-held cameras, surveillance cameras, and smart glasses.” That’s true — and you can also tell where they ran out of budget and had to resort to shooting the storyboards as animatics and decided to treat that as an intentional choice.

This is literally about the thirteenth investigation that a group of college science students makes, this time delving into the urban legend of The Mole Man, an ex-patient of the Black Grove Asylum.

According to the movie’s IMDB page, “This first feature will introduce the killer and we’re looking to do a spin-off series where we will then go on to produce Mole Man, Mole Man 2 and Mole Man 3.” This movie finally got scary, because I know at some point I will have to suffer through all three of those movies the same way I did this one.

Investigation 13 is available on DVD and on demand today from Uncork’d Entertainment.

DISCLAIMER: We were sent this movie by its PR company. That has no impact on our review.

Shevenge is made up of 12 different stories that the filmmakers say range from subtle psychological scares to all-out gore, including sociopaths, serial killers, spirits, and avenging angels. Some of these have been previously released and some are brand new.

Staci Layne Wilson assembled these different stories and directed the Psycho Therapy segment within. There’s also a story — Karma Is a Bitch — inspired by the Michelle Carter text/suicide case, Glass Ceiling where women bringing guns into the discussion of equal pay and even a killer mom — Hooker Assassin — going after men that have wronged women.

Plus, Tristan Risk from American Mary appears in For A Good Time, Call…and stories called All Men Must Die, Just A Girl, Lady Hunters, Doll Parts, Recipe #42, Metamorphosis from Hong Kong filmmaker Elaine Xia, The Leftovers and The Fetch, which has Kathleen Wilhoite from Witchboard in it.

As with most modern portmanteau movies, this is a mixed bag of assorted shorts assembled around a general idea instead of the Amicus films, where each movie leads to something bigger and better. Some stories may be better — or worse — than others.

You can watch this for free on Amazon Prime. Wilson also has a limited edition DVD available on her site. Net profits are going to go to the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund, so even if you don’t like the film, you’re helping a good cause.

DISCLAIMER: We were sent this by the movie’s PR company. That had no bearing on our review.

The Debunkers are a band of amateur detectives, who will do anything to become heroes while getting right — hence the LLC part of their name — but they’re just geeks at heart. After all, their code names come from their favorite video games: Link, Snake and Dr. Mario.

Now with their new intern, Canadian foreign exchange student Sheik, they’re on a question to become the premiere mystery debunking business in the state of California.

On the first day of senior year, the Debunkers are hired by two girls who need someone to discover who killed their friend. Soon, however, our heroes find themselves up against not only a killer, but perhaps the occult.

I had a lot of fun with this movie. It seems like the springboard for a potential series, which I would not mind watching at all. It moved really quickly and had just enough quirky charm to keep me invested.

Debunkers, Inc. is now available on Showtime. You can also find it on Amazon Prime, Vudu, iTunes and GooglePlay.

Seth Breedlove and Small Town Monsters have released some really fun documentaries over the last few months like On the Trail of Bigfoot and Terror In the Skies.

Now their focus is on the Missouri Monster, better known as Momo. This dark hair-covered, three-toed and foul smelling beast was said to have frightened the people of Star Hill, near Louisiana, Missouri during the summer of 1972.

The beauty of this movie is that it’s told in both narrative and documentary form. The story portions look like a lost drive-in movie from the 70’s, depicting the folklore of MOMO while documentary footage corrects the legend thanks to actual survivors.

Breedlove describes MOMO: The Missouri Monster as “Rashomon meets Creature from Black Lake or The Legend of Boggy Creek.” That’s right on the nose and right up our alley.

The entire movie is hosted by Lyle Blackburn, who wrote the books The Beast of Boggy Creek: The True Story of the Fouke Monster, Beyond Boggy Creek: In Search of the Southern Sasquatch and Momo: The Strange Case of the Missouri Monster. He’s also narrated the previously mentioned Terror In the Skies, as well as The Bray Road Beast and The Mothman of Point Pleasant. You may also remember him from when Joe Bob Briggs played The Legend of Boggy Creek during his first Shudder marathon.

This is the best film I’ve seen from Small Town Monsters and that’s saying something. It’s so much fun — combining a movie that doesn’t really exist with a monster that very well may exist. If you’re a fan of Bigfoot films — this list right here proves that we are — you’re in for a real treat.

MOMO: The Missouri Monster will be available on DVD and video on demand September 20. If you’re in Point Pleasant, WV on that day, you can check it out as part of the annual Mothman Festival.

DISCLAIMER: This movie was sent to us by its PR firm but that has no impact on our review.

There are times in Clownado that — thanks to the patois used by some of the characters, something I can only think is a gangster Kansas City accent — that I thought it was taking place in the 1930’s, not 2019. That said, the modern cars clued me in that this was no period piece.

A gang of circus clowns get cursed and decide to get their vengeance using a tornado, which brings a stripper, a teenage runaway, a black Elvis and an average guy into their vortex.

This movie was written and directed by Todd Sheets, who directed part of the movie Hi-Death that we covered some time back, as well as Dreaming Purple Neon and Bonehill Road. A shot-on-video and released-to-VHS pioneer, his work dates back to Dead Things (1987).

Probably the selling point of this film for most folks would be the Linnea Quigley cameo. She plays Spider, the owner of a strip club that unites our main characters. Supposedly, this is the exact same character that she played in Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama.

And if you know anything of 1970’s adult movies, Autumn Moonspell is played by Jeanne Silver, who was once better known as “Long” Jean Silver. Eileen Dietz, who was the face of the demon in The Exorcist, also is in this.

Not since Mausoleum has a movie had such killer breasts. There’s plenty of gore to be had, but other than a great poster, fun cameos and the name, there’s not much to enjoy here.

Clownado is now available on DVD and streaming. Since its streaming debut, you can now watch it for free if you have an Amazon Prime membership.

DISCLAIMER: We were sent this movie by its PR team — they even sent a sticker, which was above and beyond the call of duty — and that has no bearing on our review.

Take it from someone who has watched more than forty Sylvester Stallone movies in three weeks. Even I didn’t really want another Escape Plan movie. Yet here we are.

Thanks to foreign markets — while the film went straight to video in the US, it played in theaters in Russia, Italy, United Kingdom, Australia, Turkey and Portugal — this movie was announced even as Stallone was filing Escape Plan 2.

Security expert Ray Breslin (Stallone) is hired to rescue the kidnapped daughter of a Hong Kong tech mogul — who is trying to revitalize small towns in Ohio like Mansfield — and his girlfriend Abigail Ross (Jaime King) from a prison run by the son of Lester Clark Jr. (Devon Sawa, Idle Hands), whose father was the bad guy wat back in the first film.

Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson and Dave Bautista return for one more mission, one where everything seems shot under a gold filter. There’s really nothing that I liked about this film other than Bautista and Stallone’s interactions.

Director John Herzfeld started his directing career with ABC Afterschool Specials before directing the critically savaged Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta film Two Of A Kind. He also directed The Ryan White Story, The Preppie Murder, Casualties of Love: The Long Island Lolita Story (seriously, the fact that I haven’t covered every single Amy Fisher film that I’ve watched on this site is such a missed opportunity), the Tarantino-influenced 2 Days In the Valley, Don King: Only In America and Reach Me, which also starred Stallone.

In fact, he and Stallone go way back to 1976’s Cannonball, a movie that Herzfeld acted in. He also appears in Cobra as one of the criminals Stallone sets on fire near the end of the movie and directed Inferno: The Making of The Expendables.

Here’s all you need to know about the film, thanks to IMDB: The opening production looks last for 90 seconds and the end credits are almost nine minutes, so 11% of the film is just production info.

Marriage — especially the ceremony itself — can be terrifying. The best horror movies take a frightening moment in our lives and show how “what’s the worst that can happen” explodes outward into a spiraling miasma of sheer madness. In a year sadly bereft of many great — or even halfway decent — horror films, Ready Or Not has arrived to squarely punch you right in the face and spit blood in your eye.

For generations, the wealthy Le Domas family has remaining in power by conducting a ritual on the night that anyone new enters the family. Tonight, prodigal son Alex has returned home to marry Grace (the niece of Hugo Weaving, who also appeared in The Babysitter and Mayhem), an orphan who has been raised in foster homes.

Years ago, the great-great-grandfather of the Le Domas family made a deal with Mr. Le Bail and the family must play one game — they’re pretty much Hasbro in real life — at the end of the wedding cerenomy. It could be something as simple as Old Maid. Yet it ends up being the worst card — Hide And Seek.

Now, the entire Le Domas family is hunting down Grace, who only thinks that she’s playing a game. Maid after maid gets caught in the crossfire and the entire extended family — children included — are armed, dangerous and after our heroine.

Henry Czerny shines as Tony Le Domas, the crazed leader of the clan, and Andie McDowell is wonderful as his somewhat conflicted wife Becky. One of the relationships at the center of this film is between good brother Alex and bad sibling Daniel ((Adam Brody, Seth from The O.C.). Of course, this being horror, what is good and what is evil will change throughout this long night of the soul.

There are parts of this film that aspire to be more than mere slasher or modern horror. That’s a good thing. It may be me reading into things, but the scene where Grace escapes into the fields was reminiscent of the framing and pace of Suzy Kendall being chased in Sergio Martino’s Torso. And without giving too much away, the close finally delivers on the levels of gore and supernatural menace that has been slowly hinted during the film’s run time. Joyously, this feels like a movie with no dead spots, growing tighter and taunter as the slowly more blood-caked and torn wedding gown that Grace wears throughout.

I have to single out Nicky Guadagni, who was in Cube, for her portrayal of Helena. The loss of her husband at the film’s start has warped her into the twisted center of this family, despite what the male head would have you think. She’s turned her loss into less than sacrifice and more of a reason for being. Drug addict sister Emilie (Melanie Scrofano, the lead on SyFy’s Wynonna Earp) is pretty great, too.

So often, modern horror hasn’t been certain how to combine humor and terror. Ready Or Not gets it right. Then again, I have a weird sense of humor, so I laughed joyously at moments that no one else found funny. Too bad — I would have preferred to see this in a much rougher theater than the comfortable place where it unspooled so that people would have been unafraid to scream and yell at the screen. After all, that’s what movies are for.

Ready Or Not was directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin (V/H/S) and Tyler Gillett (Devil’s Due), who are part of the Radio Silence film collective. It was written by Guy Busick (Stan Against Evil) and Ryan Murphy (Minute’s Until Midnight).

I will spoil one part of the film. At the close, as Grace draws a drag of cigarette despite being covered in grime, gore, viscera and her own blood, there’s an echo of a movie from the past, Heathers. That made me clap in the theater — despite the machinations of family, the man she loves and even fate, Grace is not going away without a fight. Her spirit is one that even the devil must sit up and take notice of — quite literally.

States is the first movie from writer/director Zach Gayne. It’s a “transient road film featuring an array of young drifters wandering throughout the U.S. with varying degrees of purpose, or lack-thereof.”

Obviously, many are going to compare it to Linklater’s Slacker, which is probably the closest film I can think of that captures what this is all about. The press materials refer to it as “an outsider’s love letter to America and the searchers of its endless highways.”

Alex Esso, who was the lead character Sarah in Starry Eyes and will play Wendy Torrence in the upcoming sequel to The Shining, Dr. Sleep, stars. From a trip through the homes of the stars in Hollywood gone wrong to a religious trip in the desert and an Uber driver taken in by an actress, the intertwined tales of this film are all off the beaten path. Your capacity to enjoy them will depend on your ability to enjoy conversations that often meander.

States is playing in theaters now in limited release.

DISCLAIMER: We were sent this movie by its PR team, but that has no bearing on our review.

A woman on the run from ruthless kidnappers discovers her rescuer is the man jailed for attacking her 15 years earlier. That’s the story behind director Juliane Block’s (Kinks, 8 Remains) new film, which is available on DVD and digital on August 6.

Emma wakes up to find herself trapped in an abandoned bunker along with two other victims — Ben and Jamie — and they’re all on the run from three brutal ex-solders. Faced with either staying in the bunker or running away with the man who assaulted her and his friend, she chooses the second option.

Why have they been kidnapped? Why are Ben and Jamie there? Who is the real enemy? Those questions — and more — will be answered. There are also several brutal moments in this film, including a spoken part where the soldiers discuss what the animals that they rely on for carnal pleasure. It’s incredibly disgusting and if I say that, just imagine what that could entail.

That said, the film didn’t hold my interest at all. I kept turning it up hoping that a louder volume would help keep my interest. No matter how loud it got, I kept tuning it out.

DISCLAIMER: We were sent this movie by its PR team, but that has no impact on our review.