 |
| Release: 2011, Rated: NR, Runtime: 114 min. |
I love anthology films, as evident by my Creepshow 2 movie review. When watching one of these films, you feel like you’re getting short small stories, with quick resolutions and usually a neat little twist at the end. The Theatre Bizarre, is an anthology film, but it’s an awful, awful anthology film. One that feels like the sole purpose of the movie, was to see how much it could suck. I understand films that want to to be artsy, or avant-garde (a word I thought I would never use in my entire life), but you still need to have a damn catch with your stories, something to pull you in and keep you watching. Don’t go throwing random, shitty, low budget nonsensical schlock my way and expect me to eat it up. I might be alone on my assessment of this one, but The Theatre Bizarre sucks…
Short nitty-gritty plot description from IMDb is as follows: Down a seedy city street in her neighborhood, young Enola Penny is obsessed with what appears to be a long abandoned theatre. One night, she sees that the front door is slightly ajar and impulsively decides to sneak inside. But there in the dark, decrepit auditorium, a show unlike any other unfolds before her eyes. Its host is an eerie human puppet named Peg Poett who will introduce Penny to six tales of the bizarre.
The movie is broken down into six “stories”, which I will quickly break down here. First up is “Mother of Toads“. It involves a couple traveling France and eventually running into an old woman at a market, who is selling various occult items (cause satanic earrings were all the rage back then). The boyfriend, who happens to know a lot about the occult (you find this out by watching the actor stumble through terrible dialog), learns from the woman that she has a copy of the Necronomicon. So, the couple split up, with the girlfriend going to the salon and the boyfriend heading over to this creepy old woman’s place. Once there, the old woman shows him the book and turns into a hot naked witch chick, who proceeds to bang the living shit of the guy, whilst the witch chick slowly turns into a mother toad. There is definitely more that happens in the story, but I could be arsed to care about it, as the acting is awful and the story is even more awful. Things are obviously off to a great start with this anthology.
Next up is “I Love You“, a story about an obsessed man who loves his wife a little too much. It turns out his constant needing has turned her into a ho-bag, who just wants to bang every guy she sees. So, she is leaving him and he doesn’t take too kindly to that… I think. The story kinda loses itself near the end and goes all schizophrenic on you, but overall this one wasn’t too bad and had some nice little gore bits in it.
The third story is titled “Wet Dreams” and it’s not what you think it is. Directed by special effects guru Tom Savini, it tells the tale of a man who is having a recurring dream, where his genitals are being cut off. The story hints that he was a cheating, abusive husband and ends with the viewer wondering whether it was all a dream or not. Really, it just ended with me thankful it was over.
The forth story is called “The Accident” and is about a mom and daughter who witness an accident on the drive home and the daughter ponders the meaning of life and death, all the while I’m pondering why the hell I’m watching this drivel.
The firth story, called “Vision Stains” is a little better than most of the others. It’s about a woman who seeks out shattered, homeless drug addicts, with nothing to lose and are on the verge of giving up and dieing. She kills them, out of what she thinks is mercy and takes the fluid that is in their eyes, as that is what contains their life story and injects into her own eye, seeing everything that they experienced in their life. (Okay, maybe it’s not that much better than the others.)
Finally and I really mean it, is “Sweets“. It’s the only story out of all of them that seems somewhat relatable to say, a Tales from the Crypt episode, with it’s quirky humor. It has a very bizarre and strange story about a couple, who are really into the sweets (candy, cake, etc). The woman has grown tired of cramming desserts down her boyfriend’s throat, while sitting naked in a bathtube full of cream (I kid you not) and she wants to leave him and he begs for her to stay. She finally caves in and says she’ll meet up with him later that day one last time. We cut to her heading to some sort of strange, sexual, erotic eating club, where some strange, sexual, erotic eating takes place. I could explain some more about it, but ah screw it, this one sucks too.
The whole framing segments of The Theatre Bizarre have actor Udo Kier as the story teller, prancing around pretending to be a some sort of doll on stage, wearing caked on make up and spouting philosophical nonsense to the point, where I want to shoot myself in the face. The Theatre Bizarre is 113 minutes too long, the acting is awful, the stories are complete nonsense and boring. This movie was a giant waste of my time. I would love to give this movie a 0/5, but due to the fact that do we get some nude scenes and bits of gore here and there, I can live with giving it something slightly higher…
Rating:
