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Reel Advice, by Steve Anderson
Jolly Roger: Massacre at Cutter's Cover
**
Directed By
Gary Jones
Written By
Gary Jones
Jeff Miller
Cast
Rhett Giles
Tom Nagel
Kristina Korn
Thomas Downey
Kim Little
R
80 mins
<
What do you get when you take undead pirates with familiar aspirations,
a plot that seems vaguely familiar, more than enough blood and fake heads,
and strippers?
You get "Jolly Roger: Massacre at Cutter's Cove," the newest film
from The Asylum.
So what we have here is a pirate who wants his gold back. Yeah, I
know, it sounds familiar. It's the plot of the entire "Leprechaun"
franchise, only with an undead pirate instead of a homicidal midget.
And of course, our pirate buddy is willing to go to really horrendous
lengths--including killing anything and everything in his path, even
a couple of rather attractive strippers--to get his gold.
And how much good can gold possibly do this guy, anyway? Unless he's
planning to get like a whole lot of plastic surgery, no one's gonna
take his money. The guy looks like he went through a garbage
disposal face first. Not that anyone seems to care--he walks into a
strip club and nobody bats an eye. Even the strippers don't seem to
care--they grind away at him like he were dripping with twenties and
looked like Jesse McCartney.
Okay, so a movie like this isn't exactly long in the old logic
department. Frankly, the back of the box says it all--"A new horror
masterpiece from the director of Mosquito and Spiders."
Oh my.
On what planet is "Mosquito" considered a masterpiece? "Spiders"
wasn't so bad, but "Mosquito" was just plain sad. And frankly,
"Jolly Roger" will never be anyone's idea of a masterpiece unless
your sole criteria for judgment is "a movie can only be declared good
when two or more actresses expose themselves."
Check out the fantastically puerile ghost story at the twelve minute
mark! This is so unbelievably bad, I think he could get a film deal
out of it. Check out the excerpt: "It's called 'Babes in Whoreland',
and there's these five sluts. And they get killed. By this guy in
this mask." The character telling this one probably has a decent
chance at getting it produced if he can pitch it to Brain Damage or
Shock-O-Rama Cinema, as long as Misty Mundae would be willing to
play--GASP!--a SLUT.
Even better, check out the CSI rejects at the crime scene at the
sixteen minute mark. One body missing a head, one body with a torso
cut in half longways, and they can't quite figure out what the murder
weapon is. I'm guessing it's not a handgun.
And at the twenty five minute mark, we get this absolute hoot of a
sequence in which a guy, with all the aplomb of McGyver, picks a
police station door lock.
With the underwire from his girlfriend's bra.
I don't even know where to begin telling you what's wrong with that.
And at twenty eight and a half minutes, the plastic heads go a-flying.
This is the really, truly interesting thing about "Jolly Roger:
Massacre at Cutter's Cove." It is literally packed to the gills with
probably unintentionally comical moments. Moments where the effects
or the writing or the acting or even the post-production work isn't
exactly all it could have been. I could keep a running list of
bizarre sequences that only make even a scrap of sense when viewed in
frame advance, like the head shot at thirty five minutes ten seconds
where it goes from semi attached to midway down the back and into the
fish bowl in the space of one frame.
The ending isn't all the much of a surprise, but still fairly well
done. It completes things rather well, and this is an ending's
minimal purpose. It includes one truly comical sequence, one fairly
massive cheat, and one small twist that felt tacked on just so they
could say that there was a twist ending.
The special features include deleted scenes, a behind the scenes
featurette, audio options, cast and crew commentary, and trailers for
"War of the Worlds," "Intermedio," "Jolly Roger," "Lethal Eviction,"
and "Alien Abduction."
All in all, "Jolly Roger: Massacre at Cutter's Cove" won't win any
awards any time soon, but if you're looking for standard, run of the
mill indie horror fare for your Saturday night movie party, you could
do vastly worse.
-------------------- Battle of the Dress Codes!
 (From Get Outta My Head!. Click on image to see full-sized image.)
When I first tangented Kirabug's website, what attracted me was the links page, with a listing of what comics ran what days. I thought it interesting and innovative. Unfortunately for me, I missed the comic (Get Outta My Head) entirely!
And that's a shame. It's actually rather enjoyable, even though Anne will often let herself be distracted by news articles on AOL and the like. She'll make fun of these news articles, adding cartoons in the middle of them. Sometimes these articles can be quite funny... but to be honest, I'm more interested in seeing what's up with Lila, Cole, and the others than on the latest headline gaff that the varied on-line news groups seem destined to bungle.
We've not had many long story arcs yet. Anne seems to think she needs to build up the characters backgrounds more before going into these stories. The thing is, office humor and the stupidity of managers seem fairly universal. The comic could have started on this note and people would have been amused by it.
The artwork is still fairly rough in places, and she updates only twice a week, but I sense potential in this comic. If she sticks with it and doesn't let life drag her down (the cartoonist is working on her Master's degree) then I think Get Outta My Head will become an interesting and fun comic, with a combination of jokes and short storylines.
What I'd suggest most to Anne is to just let the stories flow. You can't develop characters and backgrounds without storylines, so if you have the stories... just tell them. It will work out, and the more stories you tell, the more readers will get to know the characters and their backgrounds... and the easier it will get to tell more storylines.
Further, the more often the comic updates and is drawn, the better the drawings will flow. As an example, early CRfH strips were pretty raw. If you compare that to comics drawn today, you can see some similar elements, but you'll also see that there has been an evolution of style and ability in the art.
In the meantime, I look forward to seeing what happens next with the battle of the office managers. *evil grin*
Robert A. Howard
------------------------- Tiptoe through the tulips, to where the Dragons lie...
 (From Order of the Stick. Click on image to see full-sized image.)
Order of the Stick is many things. It parodies D&D and the d20 game system. It parodies stick figures themselves, turning what many consider the simplest art form into something unique and delightful. (Hell, if Sluggy's Stick Figure Week used art this sophisticated, then Sluggites wouldn't start burning Pete in effigy whenever he started up another Stick Figure filler week. Though he wouldn't be able to do the jokes about naked stick figures then...) And it's an ongoing storyline that is getting more and more complex, without being over the top.
Haley is one of the more interesting characters in the comic. As the only visible girl of the group (we're not sure if Vaarsuvius is male or female), she's already fairly unique, and is easily a favorite among readers. She's gotten the best of every member of the group, and has also saved their bacon on more than one occasion. And of late, we've seen signs that Haley is attracted to Elan (jealousy when Elan is seducing the evil sorceress of the bandit gang, she yells at Vaarsuvius when V upset Elan concerning becoming a wizard, and so forth).
Monday's comic is a confirmation of Haley's attraction to Elan. She thinks she's dying after having been eaten by the dragon (and then upchucked), and she starts admitting her feelings to him. (I love the lean-in by Durkon to heal Haley, btw. And notice that Haley's hair is all out of place until healed, and then instantly goes back to "normal"? Most amusing!) Naturally Haley immediately concocts a lie about being in love with ukuleles and Elan (whose intelligence is so low that light spells dim around him) buys it immediately.
Of course the others know the truth. Roy's reaction is especially delightful (though he has not been one to pull punches around Elan). No doubt the Elan/Haley relationship will eventually end on a humorous note, but until then it's sure to amuse both readers and cast alike.
Robert A. Howard
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