How Did You Come Up With Your Blog Name?

So this is pretty much a filler post, since real life has been getting in the way of my blogging life recently. I still have two Project Terrible to watch (though I will probably have time for one tonight - FINALLY) so I'm going to miss the July deadline. Sue me.

Anyway, this is something I've been wanting to put out there to all the bloggers for a while, simply for my own curiosity. On a recent post I did for the Liebster Blog Award, this was one of the questions I asked of the people receiving the award from me. It looks like Craig at Let's Get Out of Here! is going to be the only one answering that question, although I already had kind of an idea of how he came up with his blog name!

So here's my question for anybody that wants to answer: How did you come up with or where did you get the idea for the name of your blog? And, as a follow-up, are you still happy with that choice now?

I guess I'll answer the question, too. I started my blog not really thinking that anything would come out of it or that I would keep up with it, so I came up with the title pretty quickly and didn't really have any other options. I knew I was going to be writing about horror, and I also wanted any readers to know that I was a female - because I guess it still surprises some people that girls actually watch horror movies. So then the question was, what title will convey that this will be a site about horror movies, written by a girl? The Girl Who Loves Horror. Easy, breezy, beautiful.

Am I still happy with that hasty choice now? I used to wish that I had taken more time to come up with something more witty or clever, like a fun play on words or something, but I love the title now. It looks good up there on my blog banner, rolls off the tongue nice, and of course, conveys that I am a girl who loves horror movies and loves writing about them. I think I'm going to keep it.

So please leave a comment and share with me and the rest of the blogging community how you decided on the name for your blog and if you still like it now. Inquiring minds want to know!

Project Terrible: Hardware (1990)

More sci-fi gold for my next Project Terrible movie! I got fairly lucky during my first round of PT with the unlikely gem Death Machine, but this pick from Robert at Gaming Creatively - Hardware - was not entirely my favorite. And it is terrible in many ways, despite the fact that the movie actually has a pretty loyal fanbase - if anything on IMDb can be believed. Which it can't. So I don't know. Maybe some people like it, but not me.

Hardware takes place in the future (of course) where Earth has become really shitty looking. The temperatures are hot all the time, the water is polluted, and most of the population has radiation sickness or some crap. A drifter finds the remains of a robot head in the desert and takes it to a junk dealer, where it is picked up by Moses (Dylan McDermott) and his friend Shades (because he wears sunglasses all the time - how freaking clever). Mo takes the head back to his girlfriend Jill, who spends all her time locked in her apartment smoking dope and making sculptures out of metal trash. The robot head rebuilds its body with pieces of her sculptures and then it just kind of hangs around until they find a way to kill it. The end.

I don't think sci-fi movies are really my thing. I love the really good and popular ones like Alien, Event Horizon and Dark City, but I always seem to have a hard time getting into these types of movies. Maybe it's because they make me feel a little stupid sometimes with all the technology- and space-talk that is so hard to understand, even if most of it is made up. So Hardware does get a few points from me there for not making me feel stupid and keeping all the futuristic stuff easy to follow. Actually, there doesn't seem to be all that many advancements in technology in this time period. All they have are vid-phones and door locks controlled by computers, supposedly. Oh, and some people, like our hero Moses, have robotic limbs. 

My main gripe with Hardware is that it perhaps could have been better if it wasn't on such a small scale. Once the movie gets to Jill's shithole apartment, it never leaves there. I was thinking that a movie about a killer cyborg robot thing would be at least a little on the epic side with some grand ole fight scenes and whatnot, but not so much here. I wanted to see the thing rampaging around on the streets killing people; instead, he just stays in this chick's apartment and doesn't really do much of anything.

And this is where the movie gets unbelievable and hard to follow. After the robot first comes to life and tries to attack Jill in her bed and she gets away, the robot... just kind of disappears. Um, where did it go and how could a big hunking piece of metal move around all stealthily in such a small space? After the first guy is killed, the robot disappears again, popping up later, unseen and unheard. 

For as boring and slow as most of the movie is, it does manage to throw in some good kill scenes. Okay, there are actually only two good kill scenes but I guess beggars can't be choosers. When Jill's pervy neighbor comes over to "check up on her, the robot is hiding outside her window. He goes to open the blinds (so he can spy on her while she's nekkid some more), the robot grabs him, jabs two metal fingers into his eyes, and drives a drill through his torso. Some good blood spurtage. Later, another dude gets deliciously cut in half by the automatic door in a really nice effects sequence. 

Also disappointing about Hardware is the ending. Both the hero and the robot get anticlimactic and unceremonious death scenes; the former when he is injected with the robots cytotoxin, as it's called, and just sort of sits down and dies. After being blown up and shot numerous times fails to end the robot, Jill finally figures out its weakness and leads it into the shower where it is killed... with water. WATER. You'd think a military-grade weapon like this would have some sort of safeguard against this kind of thing but I guess not. 

For a movie with such a small budget, though, I'm very impressed with the overall look of Hardware. It truly feels like a futuristic wasteland where everything is hard and cold and metal, and nothing is soft or comfortable. The costuming leaves a little to be desired, but the sets are very detailed and believable. The dystopia of this landscape is evident in the fact that everything is rundown and old, with people scraping by with what little technology they have. The overuse of red lighting was a bit annoying, however. It was like, how can we make this look even more bleak and depressing? Red lights! Put red lights everywhere!

Hardware tries, but it didn't really try hard enough for me. Much of the film was very confusing and disjointed and the robot itself was quite disappointing in its abilities and its onscreen actions. There are much, much better sci-fi movies out there than this - but obviously you shouldn't take my word on that since I don't watch a lot of them in the first place. 

The Liebster Award!... Or, An Insanely Long and Self-Indulgent Post

This is your last chance to turn away because this post is going to be - as the title suggests - really long and self-indulgent because I have to answer all these questions about myself for this here award. I can't help it, I love these blog awards and answering random questions. It's fun times for me.

I really don't deserve any kind of award or recognition because of my total lack of commitment lately but I'm thinking that the Liebster Award is for those blogs that you love because you love the person behind them and support them in their blogging endeavors. So I have to give a mega-thanks to the people who passed this on to me - The Screaming Goregasm at Jenny's House of Horrors, Alex Jowski of Alex Jowski Movie Reviews, and Kaijinu over at Sticky Red: A Bodycount Compendium. Mushy stuff to follow: Your sites are all great and you all bring something really interesting and fun to read to this large blogging community that makes you stand out and makes others keep coming back for more. I appreciate all you do!

Rules for the Mutated Liebster Award:

1) Each person must post 11 things about themselves.

2) Answer the questions the tagger has set for you.

3) Create 11 questions for the people you have tagged to answer.

4) Choose 11 people and link them in your post.

5) Go to their page and tell them.

6) No tag backs.

11 Facts About Michele, The Girl Who Loves Horror 

1. I have a secret desire to be an interior decorator. 

2. I recently started riding a bicycle for exercise and now have these visions of becoming one of those hardcore cyclists that ride for like, 11 hours a day or something.

3. It seems to be physically impossible for me to sleep past 7:30 am on my days off. 

4. I'm a girl and I have never had a massage, facial, pedicure or manicure. And I really don't want to do any of those things.

5. I have a small collection of $1 bills that have been signed by the bands Gravity Kills and Ludo, and one signed by comedian Bill Engvall.

6. Fall (or "autumn" if you want to get sophisticated) is my favorite season.

7. I love Ancient Roman history.

8. At an amusement park one time, this pregnant lady stopped the ride we were on because she was worried about her baby because I had supposedly pushed her earlier while we were in line. Draaaaaammmmmmmaaaaaaa.

9. I absolutely hate it when people paint the walls in their house yellow.

10. I have carpal tunnel syndrome in my right wrist.

11. I am really hungry right now.

Now since three different people passed this award on to me, I thought it would be fun to answer EVERYBODY'S questions that were set up for the people they tagged. Oh gosh, here we go...

11 Questions from Jenny's House of Horrors

1. Which horror situation would you least like to be stuck in?

Um, all of them?! Probably anything in the Animals Run Amok category that includes an animal that could eat me alive. Not the way I want to go. 

2. What grosses you out the most?

Vomit. I hate the smell, the taste, the sound of someone vomiting, I hate the feel of doing it myself where you have no control over it and you have to just let it happen... UGH... so disgusting.


3. What is your dream job?

Actually, I kind of already had my dream job. About six months out of college, I got a job at a local TV station directing the 2 hour morning newscasts Monday through Friday and I LOVED it and I was good at it. But then the economy tanked and I became a victim of "downsizing." Ever since I started doing the blogging thing, though, I'm thinking that this would be a dream job - getting paid to watch movies and give my opinion of them. I'm pretty sure all bloggers are thinking this way, though! Admit it!

4. What do you think was the best decade for horror?

I think most fans would probably say the 1970s because of the change it brought about to the genre, but  I'm going to say the 2000s. This decade showed the genre really reinventing itself again and becoming yes a bit more graphic and in-your-face but also a lot more artistic and respected amongst fans.

5. Describe your personality in three words.

Sarcastic, fun-loving, unmotivated. 

6. Do you have an idea that you would like to see made into a horror movie?

You know, for the longest time I did have a great idea that I thought would make such a fun horror movie and I'd never seen that idea in a movie before. And then I watched this random movie one night that was almost exactly my idea. Needless to say, I was pissed.

7. What is your favorite non-horror movie?

Oh gosh, seriously? You're asking a movie buff to name their favorite movie? Why not just ask a mother which child she loves the most? 

8. Who is your favorite author?

No surprise here - Stephen King.

9. What was your biggest fear when you were a kid?

The dark. 

10. What's your biggest fear now?

The dark.

11. Describe your dream home.

Okay, I've known the answer to this for years - My dream home is a huge old Victorian style with a wraparound front porch and some kind of turret on one or both sides. I will have a library with bookshelves that go floor-to-ceiling and wall-to-wall on three sides and in the middle of the room will be the comfiest chair in the world. My dream home will also have a movie theater, of course. And to highlight my quirky and fun-loving side, I would love to have secret passageways in my dream home even if I have to gut the place and build them myself. Wouldn't that be awesome?!

11 Questions from Alex Jowski

1. What do you enjoy most about blogging?

Honestly, what I enjoy the most about blogging is having a place to voice all my thoughts and analyses about movies because I don't really have anybody in my real life that I can talk seriously about movies with. To everyone else, movies are just entertainment to be forgotten about after you've watched them, but I really get into them and I love that there's a place where I can talk about and discuss them with other fans. 

2. What movie do you end up recommending to people more than any other movie?

Revolutionary Road. It's really uncalled for how much I love that movie.

3. What celebrity or artist have you met who has inspired you the most in your life?

There was a girl in my sorority in college who was an art major and I just loved her personal style, her dedication to her art, and the unique voice she had in her art that was all hers. She inspired me to find my niche in the world and go at it full force with no fear about what others thought.

4. What is your favorite "bad" movie?

Pieces. Such a huge turd in terms of good movie-making but also ridiculously awesome at the same time.

5. What is a movie that offends you - a movie you hate for moral reasons.

I cannot in good conscience say anything nice about the movie Deadgirl. The situation is horrible, the characters are horrible, and I felt so wrong after watching that movie. I hate it.


6. What are two of your favorite books that have NEVER been adapted into a movie?

I've said this before I think, but I would freaking love to see all four of the MEG books made into movies. They are these insanely entertaining stories about a gargantuan prehistoric shark coming back into our world and the scientists that fight it. The scale of the story just gets bigger with each book and I think all of them would make fantastic summer blockbusters.

7. Whose opinion do you trust more in deciding if a movie is good or not? Critics in magazines/newspapers, fellow bloggers, or the general public (like imdb scores, etc.)?

I trust my fellow bloggers the most to let me know if a movie is at least worth a look. Now, whether or not I like it based on what they say is always different than what I think, and vice versa, so I'm still a little iffy, even though I respect their opinions a lot more than professional critics. You just never know what movie is going to affect you and you can never judge what you think another person will like even if you think you know their tastes inside and out.

8. Which game from your childhood do you wish you could play again? (Could be a video game or a playground game like Tag.)

Four Square was my game! We played it on the playground and with our neighbors at home and I miss it so much! Great memories.

9. Do you have a nickname? How did you get that name?

Honestly, I don't have a nickname other than people playing with my first name - "Michele-y," "Meeshell," that kind of thing. I put a stop to people calling me "Shelly" right quick, though. I've always hated that nickname. 

10. What was the first thing you posted on your blog and why? (Initial "Welcome to My Blog" posts don't count.)

The first thing I posted was about Stephen King, specifically about one of my favorite books of his, The Long Walk. Not original at all, I know, but I felt like I had to start with something I knew pretty well so that I would sound confident and like I knew what the hell I was talking about.

11. What is your favorite beverage?

I love a good, hot cup of Colombian coffee with hazelnut creamer. 

11 Questions from Kaijinu

1. Have you ever daydreamed about something and what's the most memorable one you ever had?
Honey, I daydream every day. The daydreams of late usually involve me finally getting a place of my own and having somewhere to display all my shit. *Sigh* It'll happen soon, I know it.

2. Who's the one comic book hero you NEVER want to see made into a movie out of respect and fear of flopping?

Sorry, dude, but I'm the wrong person to ask about this! I have no idea!

3. Will you try to dance Jamie Lee Curtis' disco scene in Prom Night (1980) with a partner?

Haha, this is funny because that is actually the only thing I remember from that whole movie. So, yes, I would love to try to see if I can get jiggy like Jamie Lee did.

4. Name one of the least likely movie franchise entry that suddenly became your number one fave?

I have a hard time getting into any of the Nightmare on Elm Street movies (aside from the first one) because they are so ridiculous a lot of the time, but I completely love Wes Craven's New Nightmare. Definitely my favorite of the whole franchise, even more than the first film.

5. What's the weirdest experience you had involving a movie? (theaters, DVD releases, etc.)
Weirdest experience was going to the movies with my sister's ex-boyfriend (scandal!) to see Star Trek: Nemesis (his choice, not mine). We're sitting there watching the trailers which are weird themselves because they're all for like, kid's movies, and then when the movie itself was supposed to be starting, the theater started playing The Wild Thornberry's Movie instead of Star Trek! So then we had to wait for them to get the right movie and everything and it was just a mess, but kind of fun at the same time.

6. Did you ever have a crush on a fantasy character in your teen years? If yes, who?

I'm not sure what you mean, really, but I've only had crushes on normal guys so I guess the answer is no!

7. If a movie character out of one of your fave flicks suddenly appeared on your doorstep, who would it be and what'll you do?
It would be Miss Scarlet O'Hara from Gone with the Wind and she and I would get gussied up in the biggest hoop dresses we could find and get twirled around the dance floor at a grand ball by all the beaux in the county. Because sometimes, I want to feel just a little bit girly.

8. WATCH OUT! EXTRA TERRESTRIALS! And you have a tool shed behind you! What'll you do?

I'll invite them to play with the croquet set that I keep in the shed.


9. With all the news on rocket launches, disease outbreaks and people killing each other, how close do you think we are before things go 28 Weeks Later?

I'm very surprised that it hasn't happened yet, to be honest. 

10. If you had the power to change yer appearance, who's face yer gonna try first?

Angelina Jolie. Not just because of the lips, either, but because her face has such awesome angles that photograph so beautifully - completely different from my face which is just plain and flat and boring.

11. Worst tasting delicacy you ever encountered?

I am not a fan of oysters. Yuck.


I'm thinking it's going to be impossible to keep track of who has already received this award and who hasn't, so if I tag you and you've already done this or you just don't want to do it at all, that's totally cool. BUT, if you do want to do it, here are my 11 questions for you (and how did the number 11 get to be the magic number for this award anyway?):

1. How did you come up with the name for your blog and are you still happy with it now?
2. You decide on where you're going to go for a 3 week vacation by throwing a dart on a map. Where do you hope the dart doesn't land?
3. Can you trill, or "roll your r's"?
4. What is your favorite breakfast food?
5. What celebrity of the same sex do you think is totally hot?
6. Have you ever had a horror-movie related dream? If so (and if you can remember), describe!
7. I'm getting my new Poltergeist movie poster framed and I have limited wall space. Which poster should I take down to make room for the new one: Kill Bill, Pulp Fiction, Resident Evil, The Evil Dead, or Saw?
8. What was Robert DeNiro's best movie role?
9. Do you think children should be allowed to watch horror movies and why?
10. What is the most visually stunning film you have ever seen?
11. What was the last thing you ate?


And my Liebster blogs are!:

Cinema Du Meep
CineMarvellous! Movie Reviews by Nebular
Gaming Creatively
Horror Movie A Day
Let's Get Out of Here!
Mandy's Morgue of Horror
Porkhead's Horror Review Hole
Ramblings of a Honk Mahfah
The Film Connoisseur
The Horror Digest
The Zed Word - Zombie Blog


Okay, somebody SHUT ME UP.

Project Terrible: Anatomy of a Psycho (1961)

And we're back with more Project Terrible fun! This selection is courtesy of my good blog buddy Maynard of Maynard Morrissey's Horror Movie Diary and he has a pretty good rep of giving me some really awful movies in Project Terribles past. He keeps saying that I should love Anatomy of a Psycho because I love both Psycho and Anatomy of a Murder (oh, how clever they were, mixing the titles together like that). And though the title is great if not incredibly misleading, Anatomy of a Psycho was not that bad. I kinda dug it in the way that I dig a lot of these random 50s and 60s black-and-white thrillers.

Chet Marco's brother Duke has just been executed in the gas chamber for murder. While their sister Patty has come to terms with what he's done, Chet continues to have a hard time with it and gets his friends to help him beat up the prosecutor's son. But things get more complicated for everybody when they find out that Patty's boyfriend (and soon, fiance) is the son of the man whose eyewitness testimony helped put Duke away.

Though I say I kind of liked the movie, it's really only because of the story which is a good one, and perhaps would have made a better movie in different hands. Though the description on Netflix promises a revenge tale, and the title of the movie itself promises a tale of a man's descent into madness, none of this happens. Chet does seem to be going a little crazy but not overtly so - the actor, Ronnie Burns, just gives the audience a little of the wild eye to make us think he's crazy. Plus he gets that cool scar on his cheek, and crazy people always have scars, right?

The action scenes are fairly cheesy what with all the obvious fake punches and choreographed stunts. The part where Chet and his gang go after the son of the prosecutor was interesting because of the creepy sack masks that the boys were wearing. Chet also later burns a house down, so that makes for a cool shot, although the whole scene before that is very confusing and seems quite out of place.

Though I do have an affinity for movies from this time period, one thing that always bothers me is the lack of ingenuity with the camera and sets. In Anatomy of a Psycho, the sets are minimal, almost bare, and the actors just sort of stand around in them. The camera work is boringly static and there is nothing imaginative or innovative about the overall look of the film. Lighting is mediocre and the whole first couple of minutes are way too dark to even see what is going on.

The acting is also pretty cheesy, though some of the minor players do a better job than some of the major characters. The guy playing Chet was actually my least favorite, as he was often over the top and laughable. Everybody else was much more natural despite having to deliver some pretty bad dialogue in almost every scene.

So I'm sorry, Maynard, but Anatomy of a Psycho wasn't too terrible! It is actually pretty standard fair for movies of its time and genre so it worked for me on some level. The story isn't boring, so it at least kept me interested until the end - which comes quickly, as the movie is only about 75 minutes long.

You can get the DVD through Netflix as a double feature ("Killer Creature Double Feature" according to the menu) with another movie called Hatchet for the Honeymoon, but I didn't get a chance to watch that one before I sent it back. The DVD is also entertaining because of a random trailer for a Roger Corman movie called Creature from the Haunted Sea. I'm seeing a future Project Terrible movie for some unlucky blogger (or lucky, I guess, if you like Corman).

Movie Review: Bereavement (2010)

I am slightly uncomfortable about going into my review of Bereavement still a little unsure about how I really feel about it, but there was something going on with this movie that I really enjoyed and thought warranted some attention here. It seems at first to be a tad redundant and formulaic (even though it is much more stylized than similar films), which made me think that I knew exactly where the story was going. However by the end, I was nowhere near where I thought I would be, and that surprise makes me want to give Bereavement at least some props.

In a small town in Pennsylvania, a young boy named Martin is kidnapped by a brutal and psychotic serial killer, Sutter, who is intrigued by Martin's strange demeanor and decides to keep him in order to teach him his killing ways. Five years later, teenager Allison is sent to live in the town with her uncle's family after her parents are killed in a car accident. Allison's curiosity about the abandoned meat plant where Martin and the killer live soon turns about to be a very grave mistake.

Okay, so the reason that I'm not sure that I completely like this film is simply the fact that I don't get the film. I don't get what it's saying or what the point of the whole thing was at all. Mostly, I don't get what was up with Sutter and just what he was trying to "teach" Martin. Basically he is your average psychotic killer spewing out quasi-religious ramblings to a large steer skull hanging on the wall, but why don't we get any kind reasoning behind all this? What the hell is he talking about? I'm at a loss, really.

Well, as it turns out, that just may not be my fault. Not only do the filmmakers make no attempt to give even a fleeting explanation for Sutter's behavior or psychosis, they also fail to mention in their limited advertising that this movie is actually a PREQUEL. It's a prequel to a movie called Malevolence, in which Martin is the main killer, and Bereavement exists as a sort of origin story for Martin. And get this: creator Stevan Mena told everyone when Malevolence came out that the movie was intended to be the middle part of a trilogy. So he makes the second movie first, doesn't make the first movie until six years after the second movie, and as of this date, still has not made the third movie. Does this make any sense? How can we as an audience be expected to follow a story like this? I'm confused.

Putting all that aside for now, I'm still thinking that Bereavement is a pretty good movie for what it is. The actors are all a bunch of unknowns (except for the one woman playing the aunt who I totally recognized from an episode of Law and Order: SVU because I am obsessed with that show) and they're not horrible. Alexandra Daddario is definitely watchable and a pretty natural actress, not to mention that she has the most amazing eyes I've ever seen. I would say that the little boy playing Martin is also really good, except for the fact that he doesn't have much to do other than stand around and look slightly menacing for 90 minutes. 

The gore scenes are not too shabby. There is lots of great use of practical effects and in-your-face blood, especially toward the end when you consider just which characters are becoming the victim of this violence. What you think will happen and who you think will survive is drastically different than what actually occurs - which I of course now know is because this movie is a PREQUEL - but it makes for some pretty shocking revelations the first time through. Anyway. Gore is good. There is one great yet horrific death scene where a girl is hooked through the knee with one of those giant meat hook things, then hoisted up and pulled into a room where she ends up hanging over a very large pillar of fire. I can't think of anything that would suck more than that right now.

So despite the fact that the whole movie is slightly pointless on its own and hard to understand, Bereavement is an okay little horror flick. I might give Malevolence a chance now just to see what kind of killer Martin turns out to be but hopefully this little trilogy will feel more complete when it's actually, you know, complete. 

This Is A Happy Michele

Why is Michele happy? Because today, after coming home from a rather uneventful day at work, I was greeted with a tube of cardboard that put an instant smile on my face and made me all giddy. But of course, it wasn't just the cardboard tube that made me happy, it was what was inside of it. And inside of it was this:

AAAHHH!!!! MY VERY OWN POLTERGEIST POSTER!!!

You see, it had not been lost on me that I still did not own a poster for my very bestest horror movie yet, and while I was contemplating a little redecorating and reconfiguring of all the other posters I have not too long ago, I suddenly was like, "Son of a bitch! I need to get that dang Poltergeist poster and I need to get it now!" So here it is.

And now I just need to shell out some more bucks to get it framed and then this glorious piece of beauty will be in my possession FOREVER. I will never let it go.

Project Terrible: The Garbage Pail Kids Movie (1987)

Quite honestly, I could not have picked a better movie myself to help me back into the world of blogging. The credit for achieving that feat belongs to Alec over at Mondo Bizarro who apparently thought I could do with a good dose of the 80s. So he made me watch The Garbage Pail Kids Movie, otherwise known as Who The Fuck Thought THIS Would Be A Good Idea?. But that title was too long and inappropriate for children. Damn censors.

Anyway. Having still just been a rather small bundle of joy when The Garbage Pail Kids trading cards were at their (fleeting) height of popularity, I have no nostalgia to speak of for this movie. So I apologize to anyone who might love it, although I can't think of a reason why anyone would even remotely like The Garbage Pail Kids Movie because it is crap. Pure, Project Terrible crap.

Teenager Dodger loves to spend time in the local antiques shop with owner Captain Manzini when he's not pining for his beautiful neighbor Tangerine or running from Tangerine's greaser boyfriend Juice and his two cronies. One day Dodger knocks over a mysterious garbage pail in Manzini's shop and sets loose a group of ugly midgets from outer space (no, really). The Kids and Dodger become friends and they help each other and stuff. Ugh.

Now one problem I have with this movie (Ha! Just one?) is that nothing is properly explained for anything that happens. Why does Dodger claim to be "almost 15" when he's clearly no older than 12? Why does a group of tough teenagers apparently spend all their time finding and beating the crap out of a kid for no reason? The credit sequence implies that the Kids are aliens of some kind: How did Manzini get the garbage pail and what the hell kind of aliens are these? How do aliens know so much about fashion? Why does no one in this town seem the least bit affected when they see a talking midget alligator?

And on and on and on AND ON. Seriously, this was the stupidest plot that anyone could have come up with for a children's movie. I was expecting lots of gross-out comedy what with characters like Valerie Vomit, Messy Tessie, and Windy Winston. Messy Tessie does indeed have snot always running out of her nose and Windy Winston does fart a lot, but Valerie Vomit only vomits once in the whole movie at the end, and Nat Nerd actually is the only one to get the real gross-out play as he pees on himself several times... and never seems to clean it up. By the way, how is Greaser Greg a Garbage Pail Kid? There's nothing really gross about  him at all - he's just a 50s greaser guy with sideburns and a leather jacket. Anyway, there's a severe lack of gross-out goodies which probably would not have really helped the movie in any way but as it stands, the movie is so not funny EVER, only painfully stupid and at times seriously inappropriate for children.

The Kids are portrayed by little people wearing giant animatronic heads that don't ever seem to work properly and it really makes me feel bad for all the actors. The only really good part of the whole movie is English actor Anthony Newley as Captain Manzini who for some reason decided to take this role somewhat seriously and actually gives a pretty charming and endearing performance. It definitely helps the movie at least a little bit to have one person in the whole cast and crew who seems to know what the hell they are doing.

No wait, I lied. The best part of the whole movie is when the Kids go out on the town one night and Ali Gator and Windy Winston end up making some biker friends at

Bahaha! "The Toughest Bar in the World"??? You have to admit that that is slightly awesome because of its hilarity. 

No wait, I lied again. The best part of the whole movie in a really inappropriate (seems to be the word of the day for this movie, huh?) way is the whole thing having to do with The State Home for the Ugly. No, really. The whole time that Dodger and the Kids are making clothes and helping Dodger get in good with Tangerine, Manzini is working on a magic trick that will get the Kids to go back into the garbage pail. Now, he wants them back in the pail because they are in danger of being caught and taken to the aforementioned State Home for the Ugly. And when I say "caught," I mean caught, as an earlier scene shows two guards from the home in a truck cruising for ugly people. They actually throw a dog-catcher net over an ugly little girl and plan to take her away before they realize she was just wearing a Halloween mask. Wow. What kind of message is this for kids?

Eventually, the Kids are taken to the home by Juice and his friends. The place is strangely much smaller on the inside than it looks on the outside and is merely a warehouse with straw on the floor and cages along one wall that houses all the ugly people. So here is where some really non-PC stuff comes out. On the cages are signs for why that certain prisoner is in the State Home for the Ugly. Santa Claus is there for being "Too Fat," Abraham Lincoln for being "Too Skinny," Mahatma Gandhi for being "Too Bald," Albert Einstein (I think) for being "Too Old," and most shockingly, a hunched-over man with a cane is there for being "Too Crippled." Whoa. I'm really surprised the filmmakers were able to keep that little bit in there. 

In a way, I guess the guys behind this movie were actually trying to send some kind of message about people being prejudiced or something against ugly people, but um... they do a really bad job of conveying that message. They do a really bad job at everything, to be honest. The Garbage Pail Kids Movie is truly terrible and not worthy of anyone's precious little time on this world. Those Topps trading cards may have been fun to collect when you were a kid, but trust me, a live action movie based solely on trading cards is most definitely never a good idea.