Reel Advice, by Steve Anderson

Decoys (2004)
DVD
***

Directed by
Matthew Hastings

Written by
Matthew Hastings
Tom Berry

Cast
Corey Sevier .... Luke
Stefanie von Pfetten .... Lilly
Kim Poirier .... Constance
Elias Toufexis .... Roger
Meghan Ory .... Alex
Enis Esmer .... Gibby
Krista Morin .... Vikki Vickers
Marc Trottier .... Bobby Johnson
Carrie Colak .... Natasha
Richard Burgi .... Detective Francis Kirk
Nicole Eggert .... Detective Amanda Watts
Don Hastings .... Medical Examiner
Sarah Smyth .... Rosedale Princess
Leah Graham .... Melody
Mike Lobel .... Halloween Jock



R
96 mins

Time to go back to those crazy days of college with Decoys! Parties with heavy drinking, occasional lesbianism, and aliens that eat human DNA!

To start off, the DVD menu is a little on the drab side. While the box art is certainly appealing, mostly because it captures the intent of the film so well, just putting the box art on the DVD menu has been done to death. It's so unoriginal that it loses any appeal that it may have had.

But the film itself is what we're truly after here, so let's have a look.

Decoys is the story of a fellow who comes home one Halloween night to find the house a little colder than he expected. A LOT colder. So cold that his roommates seem to have frozen to death. IN the house.

Then, for reasons that are utterly unfathomable, we shift off to another college where a couple of very attractive pre-med coeds who like the cold have just moved into a freshman dorm.

And if you've spent any time in a freshman dorm recently, you know that this spells a whole herd of horny teenage guys who should be making asses out of themselves to get noticed.

But these chicks aren't the norm.

They have tentacles that sprout from their spines.

They also have a thing for liquid nitrogen.

The first thing you notice right off is at the nineteen minute, eighteen second mark. There's a hot blonde coed on stage next to the school's hockey captain at a sorority rush mixer with booze for all. And what does a random wit in the audience shriek?

"Give him a kiss!"

Obviously someone put a lot of research into this script. Because no one would EVER suggest anything stronger than THAT at a college party. No one would EVER be so crass as to suggest that the young lady part with some clothing...say...her top? Never.

The rest of the movie spreads outward like a fairly standard alien murder mystery kind of deal. Our steadily dwindling Scooby Gang searches for answers to the great mystery of who are these tentacle chicks, where do they come from, what do they want on their pizza, that they have a serious and debilitating fear of fire, so on and so forth, on into video eternity.

While there are some terribly amusing special effects--especially the tentacles that show up on a regular basis--we all know that special effects alone do not a movie make. The plot is all the more important, and it's not actively offensive. It's fairly standard stuff. Yes, they're distracting from cliches and obvious holes in the plot and horrific dialogue featuring phrases like "To finally uncover them for who they truly are." with tons of nudity and huge and impressive...tracts of LAND...every few minutes (Monty Python fans should get that right off.).

It's obvious the overt displays of strategic and ample portions of the female anatomy are designed to draw our attention away from a plot with a far lower endowment than the female leads.

But you know what? This is somehow all right. This is an old cliche that hearkens back to the bad old flood-the-market eighties, where every third slasher film was a race to see how fast the female lead could get her top off. It's almost a homage.

And yes, we've got our share of annoyances. Annoyances like "Gibby." Gibby is our standard rap star gone insane, spouting all the latest shiznits and off the hook's enough for any three useless wannabes.

The ending is a real barnburner, and I mean that LITERALLY. Wait until you see the last fifteen minutes of Decoys. There are all manner of twists, turns, amusing sidebars, puns, and flamethrowers. Seriously! It's worth it! It is an EXCELLENT ending, with fantastic twists. Easily one of the best I've seen in quite some time.

The special features include English (for once!) subtitles, a making of featurette and trailers for "Asylum of the Damned," "Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation" (it should be noted here that they included the entire title, and the appropriate kudos should be given for this show of respect.), "Hellboy," "Kaena: The Prophecy," "The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra," and "Everquest 2." Surprisingly, there is no trailer for "Decoys," a normally standard feature not included.

All in all, despite some hackeneyed dialogue and a rather predictable plotline, Decoys overcomes its handicaps to emerge as a fairly solid title.

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What's worse is I recognize Dan's outfit...

(From Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures. Click on image to see full-sized image.)

Well, DMFA is currently doing an Extreme Makeover for Dan's wardrobe (well, Amber's calling it a Wardrobe Montage, but I like my take better *evil grin*) and it's running daily for this week because Amber feels guilty over not having us going into more storyline. Well, that and Amber thinks she'd get bored with two weeks of wardrobe suggestions and her fans might try storming the Cubi Academy to drag Dan out of the changing room.

Hmm. You know, the Kittens are urging that anyway. I wonder how the Cubi would react to several thousand ribbon-bearing magical kittens swarming their halls... nah, better hide the portal. The last thing I need is the Kittens picking up some mows to eat me out of house and home... and they would. Deliberately.

Anyway, the Extreme Makeover strips are proving most amusing, though I am curious as to why Abel (who is male, believe it or not) keeps wearing dresses. I guess he's just into Cosplay or some such. *shiftyeyes* I mean, kilts are one thing, but dresses? *grin* And the sight of him on Monday dressed in a cheerleader outfit is just wrong on sooo many levels. *grin*

It does leave me to wonder though, what sorts of things do winged people wear? I mean, it's not like they're Marsha on CRfH, who seems to be able to fold her wings under her clothes (batato bite, long story). But we don't see many back shots of Dan (Mab tends to wear low-cut backed outfits, or so it appears) so I'm not sure how he copes.

Anyway, feel free to check out DMFA today for a Nintendo-esque outfit for Dan and something for Abel that looks like an outfit out of anime. (Then again, so is the Nintendo outfit, so... *wry grin*) There will be a new update every day this week instead of the normal MWF schedule.

Robert A. Howard
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Something Wicked This Way Comes

(From Wapsi Square. Click on image to see full-sized image.)

Hmm, it's the return of Monica's self-hatred and self-doubt! And boy does she stink! *grin* We first were exposed to this backward-talking specter at the start of this year, as Monica stressed over how surreal her life was becoming, and her fears of losing her friends and family over it.

It was one of the spookier episodes to Wapsi Square (which had mostly been limited to dark flashes of Shelly's past), and it ended with Monica seizing the moment and sending the spiritual manifestation of her doubts running for the door with her derriere in flames.

Until the three golems that Tepoztecal accidentally summoned decided to keep Monica's self-doubt for her.

Heh. Steve Anderson recently complained about Wapsi Square's tendency to bounce from "Silent Hill" to "cheesecake" in a flash of an eye. He rather enjoys the more... horrific moments that have arisen in this comic, and wishes that Paul Taylor would keep with the horror more often. Well, he might have been more crept out by the murderous dream-sequences that Shelly had, but personally I fount Acinom to be creepier.

This may just be a one-shot bit, reminding us that M's still suffering from self-doubt and hatred, but after what she just went through... I think she still has this self-destructive side to her, and it's going to escape. Sooner or later. When it does, it's going to be easily as big as Shelly's nightmares. Whether it's confronted in her home once again, or in a hospital bed as she suffers a cardiac arrest remains to be seen.

Robert A. Howard
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May Site Review Index

Every month I plan on having a "monthly index" of reviews so people can easily find the reviews that most interest them. The comic titles are links to the comics themselves, and the dates lead to the specific comics themselves. Enjoy!