ROB STOAKES REVIEWS - Manos The Hands of Fate

Sponge Culture Reviews
Rob Stoakes Reviews

Manos – The Hands of Fate
1966
Harold P. Warren

Prologue

Here we are.

The ultimate.

The dead-end in the maze. The bottom of the barrel. What is widely considered to be the worst movie of all time. And I’m not talking about Eat Pray Love bad. Not simply bad. Not Transformers 2 bad. Not Ed Wood bad. Not even Uwe Boll bad. Not even awful, or wretched, or disgusting hideous. This is way worse. I’m talking about the complete opposite of any good film. It might not be a good idea for a reviewer to do the worst film of all time early in his career, but I’ll try. This is the end of the road. This is every critic’s worst nightmare. This is Manos – The Hands of Fate. No need to introduce it. If you are at all familiar with bad movies or B-movies, you have heard legend of Manos – The Hands of Fate. So, let’s dig in. I’m scared.

Plot

So, our film begins with a family of three, Michael (played by director, producer and writer Harold Warren, because it was such a good idea when Tommy Wasseau did it) his wife Margaret (Diane Mahree, who you have never heard of) and daughter Debbie (Jackey Neyman Jones, who not even Diane Mahree has ever heard of), in a car. They plan to go on holiday, so they set off and drive into the Texas sun…

… and drive…

… and drive…

… and drive…

… and fucking drive…

… wait, they’ve been stopped by a policeman! No, doesn’t matter, he lets them past… sigh… so they drive…

… and drive…

… and drive…

… and fucking drive…

… and drive…

… and drive…

… and AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!!!!!

This takes eight minutes and seven seconds, I fucking kept count. EIGHT MINUTES OF NOTHING!!! ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY NOTHING! NOT A WORD OF DIALOGUE! OR EXPOSITION! THIS ISN’T EVEN THE CREDITS SEQUENCE! NO WORDS COME UP! NOTHING HAPPENS! EVEN CARRY ON CAMPING GOT STUFF DONE! MORE STUFF HAPPENS IN A TWO MINUTE EXCERPT OF THE YUGIOH ANIME THAN THIS BORING, FESTERING WASTE OF CELLULOID!!! ARRRGGGHHHH! HELP! HELP! ABORT THE MISSION! THE GOGGLES, THEY DO NOTHING!!! NOTHING’S HAPPENING!!!! NOT EVEN THE PHRASE ‘MAKE IT STOP’ WILL WORK BECAUSE IT HASN’T EVEN STARTED!!! WHAT’S THE SAFETY WORD?!?! HELP!!! HELP!!! HEEEEEEEEEELLLPPP!!!

… well, at least the music’s nice.

So, Michael admits to Margaret that he’s lost, so they decide to ask for directions from a man standing at the doorway to a house. And here we are: the scene you’ve all been waiting for:

I am Torgo. I take care of the place while the master is away.

Now, I am dead certain I’ve seen him in an episode of Trigun at some point.

So the family asks Torgo where Valley Lodge is, when he says that there’s no place like that anywhere near. Then Michael realises that it’s getting dark (IN BROAD DAYLIGHT!!!) and asks Torgo if he can spend the night. His wife is, however, distressed, saying that she doesn’t like the look of the place and doesn’t want to stay there. Michael tells her to calm down, and that it will be only for one night, but she carries on insulting Torgo’s home RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM!!! As loud as she can, while he’s looking directly at her, and after he has told her that it’s getting dark and there’s nowhere to stay around here. Oddly enough, Torgo takes her side, saying that the master might not approve and that he doesn’t like kids or dogs (a dog which though the family says they have isn’t actually in shot or even heard in this scene). Sorry, I mean to say; “But the MAH-star will not app-PRUVE! He doesn’t LIKE kids and DOHGS!” Eventually, he caves in, allowing the family to spend just one night at his abode. This is after a whole minute of them just looking around awkwardly. Then Torgo goes to help get the luggage, which in of itself is worth this movie just to see how fake his limp is, and the fact that Michael is willing to let a quite clearly mentally unstable and physically disabled man get his luggage for him. “SLAVE! FETCH ME MY SUITCASE, YOU LEGLESS BASTARD!”

Once Michael and Margaret get inside, they notice the strange picture of the master. They talk about his disapproving looks (get used to the words ‘disapprove’ and ‘not approve’ because Torgo’s every other line is one of these two). Michael asks Torgo where the master is (after a dodgy cut, meaning that every stands around for a minute before going ‘OH SHIT WE’RE ON’ and I won’t mention it again because, once again, this happens in EVERY SINGLE SHOT) and Torgo says that the master is not on this world but he is with them everywhere they go. He also tells the wife that the master likes her when she gets nervous about the dog in the picture, to reassure her of her safety, but of course after implying that somebody’s dead before telling them that they like them doesn’t quite do it, and Margaret is so fucking jumpy that a wolf howling outside makes her flip her shit, despite the fact that it’s clearly far away and wolves aren’t exactly uncommon in Texas as far as I know. Mind you, it doesn’t really sound like a wolf, more like a camel in Age of Empires 2. Anyway, she DEMANDS that Michael get rid of it, and Michael’s a colossal moron, so of course he complies. Oh, and it’s dark now, despite only five minutes passing from midday to midnight. However, rather than chase the animal, he just stands at the door like a gormless idiot staring into the void! Then the family dog whose name doesn’t exist runs out to fight the camel-wolf-beast-that-we’ll-never-see. Fight music flares up dramatically while we look at a blank screen and hear some dogs barking. Truly, a battle of the fucking ages we have here.

Michael decides to save the dog, so he goes to the car and gets A BLOODY LUGER! Too late, though, for the dog’s been killed by the animal. Margaret immediately blames the FUCKING HOUSE THAT THEY ARE LIVING IN BECAUSE OF COURSE WHETHER OR NOT A WOLF CAN KILL A POODLE DEPENDS SOLELY ON YOUR GEOGRAPHY JESUS CHRIST THIS MOVIE SUCKS HELP! HELP! HEEEEEEEEEEEEELP!

So, the next morning, the family have a conversation in the living room about how they want to leave. Michael calls Torgo, who stumbles in like a drunk, and slurs ‘did you want me?’ Then Michael demands that Torgo puts the luggage back, and fast! Shouting at Torgo too! THE DUDE’S DISABLED! Sure, his limp is less convincing than the graphics for the original PlayStation, but if we’re going by movie logic Torgo is a cripple who can’t walk properly and Michael is clicking his fingers. GOD I HOPE YOU DIE IN A FIRE!

Hey everybody, it’s Jack Black!

So, now outside, it’s still night time (?) but the car won’t start. Not that we’d know, all I see is a black screen. Meanwhile, Torgo is talking to Margaret (after staring at her for ten seconds of no dialogue) and of course Margaret is still a massive bitch, telling Torgo that she’s had enough of this place when a) she’s only been inside for ten minutes and b) TORGO’S RIGHT IN FRONT OF HER! Torgo tells her that it wouldn’t be safe to leave now, because the master wants her for his wife. Margaret doesn’t react to this. At all. She just stands there like an idiot. I can imagine the actress just saying in her head ‘oh fucking hell what’s my line, what’s my line?’ Torgo tells her that the master can’t have her because he fancies her. OK, I mean, she’s not that hot, but in the desert you don’t really have much alternative. Margaret screams for Michael while STANDING COMPLETELY STILL! You know, you could just run away from Torgo. He’s not that fast, you know. You could just run. Torgo apologises, however, saying that he meant no harm. Wait, I mean “I meant no HARM, madam.” Margaret immediately bitches and moans, but finally says she won’t tell Michael if he protects her from the master. God I hate this woman. I want Torgo to win. He’s my favourite character now.

Michael and Margaret meet up again in the living room with Debbie (there being no other room in the house). Michael says that the car won’t start and he doesn’t know why. He asks Torgo if there’s a telephone. Guess what the reply is. “The MAH-star does NAHT app-PRUVE of such, devices.” So, finally they decide to stay for the night. Then Debbie goes missing (though considering how little we’ve seen of her, I’m sure she’s been gone for longer and they’ve only just noticed) So they try to look for her outside even though both doors to the house are bolted. This they emphasise REPEATEDLY! But, however, Debbie comes back, with a new dog! The dog from the portrait of the master, in fact. It’s about the size of Debbie, but Debbie’s quite clearly a strong lass seeing as she’s just holding it back with consummate ease. Also, her voice sounds like a grown man pretending to be a child. They go to where she found the dog, which is a tomb where a load of women have been tied up to large pillars and the master is lying down on a stone tablet. Debbie and Margaret lock themselves in a bedroom while Michael decides to ask Torgo what in blue blazes is going on. He doesn’t say it like that, though. He actually says “Torgo’s got some explaining to do” in the manner of a disapproving father in a bad US sitcom.

“Now, son, what did I tell you about having a crypt in the basement?”
TORGO LOOKS TO CAMERA SHEEPLESSLY AND SHRUGS SHOULDERS
“Who, me?”
CUE WILD LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Torgo goes down to the crypt and tells the master that Margaret is his, not the master’s, and that he has all the wives he needs. YOU TELL HIM TORGO! WOOH! GO TORGO! He then proceeds to plant his face into one of the dead tied up women’s hips…

… before perving on Margaret undressing. Then he attacks Michael, knocking him out and tying his body over a tree. GO TORGO GO! GET BACK AT THE MAN! FUCK YOU MICHAEL, THAT’S FOR COMMANDING THE DISABLED MAN AS YOUR PERSONAL SLAVE!

Back at the tomb, the master wakes up, and BAAAAAAAAAH HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!! God he looks stupid. With the pasty white face, Stalin moustache, and Fu Man Chu dress. He looks like Gomez from the Addam's Family during his years as a cardinal in the Vatican.

Then we cut to a policeman talking to a couple who were making out. This scene last for thirty seconds and is completely pointless.

So, the master prays to Manos, played in this motion picture by a marble bust of Ernst Blofeld. He brings his wives to life, and they unexpectedly teleport to around the fire and start gossiping as if they’re at their fucking book club. Seriously, this is the most unconvincing cult ever. They just start babbling to each other while the master looks confused. They then start arguing as to who should die and who should not. They all stop shouting, then the master shouts ‘SILENCE!’, then they start talking all over again (?). He leaves to kill Torgo (NOOOOO! NOT TORGO!) before the women start arguing over whether or not to kill the child. Then a fight starts, which as you might guess is a terrible fight. The fight music too is just funky jazz, making me think I’m watching a 1940s porno. This entire scene goes on for FIFTEEN MINUTES OF POINTLESS BICKERING!!!

Finally, the master confronts Torgo, who is asleep, so of course it takes two minutes alone for Torgo just to stand up. The master kindly waits for Torgo to get up before berating him, telling him that he has failed, and that he must die. The method of killing? Staring at him! OF COURSE! That’s all he does, just stares at him. Then he prays to Manos, telling him that the Hands of Fate will kill Torgo. Well, that was… anticlimactic.

Anyway, one of the women finds Michael and proceeds to kiss his unconscious body, before slapping him. Hey, woman, that’s one hell of a gear shift. This is before we see more shots of the bloody fight. With this, we see the master perving on Margaret. What’s so hot about Margaret if you’ve got a tomb full of women to satisfy you? Anyway, he runs back to the tomb to stop the fight, before telling them to sacrifice Torgo. They force him onto the sacrifice table, and… well, it’s kind of odd.

Michael breaks free from the ropes after waking up, going to save Margaret and Debbie, but the door’s locked and he refuses to shoot the doorknob with his Luger because, um, Superman wears his Speedos outside his costume. Back at the tomb, Torgo is killed by being rubbed on his chest and patted on the cheeks by some scantily clad women (well, it’s not really my thing but I’m sure it wouldn’t kill) before being exploded…

… no…

… not Torgo…

… why Torgo…

…WHY?

WHY, LORD, WHY?! MAKE IT NOT TRUE! NOT TORGO! ANYONE BUT HIM! PLEASE SPARE TORGO! HE WAS TOO YOUNG! HE WAS TOO BEAUTIFUL! I LOVED HIM AND YOU’VE KILLED HIM! YOU BASTARDS! YOU HEARTLESS BASTARDS! NOOOOO!!! NOOOOOOOOOO!!!

We must be strong for Torgo.

Michael gets to Margaret who, like a broken record, demands that she leaves. Lady, I think we’ve guessed that we might want to leave the crazy place with the tomb full of dead women and a dead man running around killing people. Speaking of which, the master is slapping one of the wives, a wife who was giving him lip for being an idiot and who oddly enough looks like Princess Diana. Meanwhile the family runs for it, with the master and his wives in hot pursuit. Then, get this, MARGARET WANTS TO GO BACK!!! AND THEY DO!!! IDIOTS! DIE, YOU IDIOTS!

The police show up suddenly (?) looking around talking about gunshots (though Michael hasn’t shot anything), and they stand around a bit. Once again, this is completely pointless.

Back at the house, Michael and family confront the master. Michael shoots the master ton, but the master looks stupidly at them as if he’s looking at something behind them. Cut to the next morning, when another family drives up to the house, after YET ANOTHER FIVE MINUTE DRIVING MONTAGE, before meeting Michael at the door of the house, who says ‘I am Michael. I take care of the place while the master is away.’ Well, what a cheerful ending. I still can’t believe I watched all of that.

Acting/Characters

The acting is, well… I am Torgo. I take care of the place while the master is away.

That pretty much sets the standard. It really is all as bad as that. Debbie especially. Neyman Jones is a terrible actor even by child actor standards. She makes Jake Lloyd look like Lawrence Olivier. And her voice is eerie and alien, a warbling incoherent moan like a walrus that’s got its nutsack caught in a revolving door. Nobody else is quite so bad, but it’s pretty damn repugnant. Oddly enough, the best actor is Harold P. Warren himself. He’s not good at all, but he’s not… well, he is bad, and I mean less emotive than a background extra in The Matrix but at least he’s not painful. Unlike the master’s ‘laugh’. It isn’t as convincing as saying ‘Ha ha ha ha ha ha’ because that’s what he actually does. He just stands like an idiot, rolls his head back and goes ‘Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha’ like a retarded four year old child in a school play, which oddly enough has the same production value as this film.

Other Notes

So you might have guessed that this isn’t a scary film, like, at all. While for horror films, this is usually the biggest possible problem it can have, but there’s another huge issue with this movie. Nothing is explained. Absolutely nothing is explained. While in horror stories rooted in reality not explaining stuff is pretty damn scary at times, such as Black Christmas and The Birds, ones that trespass into the world of the supernatural need to explain themselves to an extent. Because, in the end, what the fuck are The Hands of Fate anyway? The master says that they’ll kill Torgo, but in the end he does it himself. And just what is Manos? The master repeatedly prays to Manos and refers him as a god. Ok, so he’s the god of what? Come on, movie, tell us. TELL US! WHAT IS MANOS A GOD OF? WHY DOES HE NEED SACRIFICES? DOES HE ACTUALLY DO ANYTHING? WHY DOES THE MASTER HAVE SUPERNATURAL POWERS? DOES HE HAVE SUPERNATURAL POWERS? IT’S IMPLIED, WHAT WITH THE ENDING, BUT HOW DID HE MANAGE TO DO THAT? HE COULDN’T CONTROL ANYONE’S MIND BEFORE, SO WHY NOW? I THOUGHT AT THE BEGINNING THAT HE WAS MANOS, BUT HE ISN’T!!! WHY? WHY DOES HE NEED SOME MANY WIVES? WHY DOES HE NEED TO KILL MICHAEL? WHY DOESN’T HE KILL MICHAEL? SOMEBODY JUST TELL ME THE TRUTH!!!

Thanks to this film, I’ve taken up excessive drinking.

Final Word

Did you know that this film was the result of a bet?

Harold P. Warren was a fertiliser salesman who betted Stirling Silliphant, writer of screenplays such as The Towering Inferno, In the Heat of Night and The Poseidon Adventure, that he could make a successful horror film on a limited budget of $19,000. That should tell you how BAD this movie is when the writer, producer, director and lead actor sold horse shit for a living. And I refuse to believe that it cost $19,000. I know films are expensive, but I could re-shoot this film scene by scene on a budget of $50. It is horribly written, horribly shot, horribly acted and horribly edited. It’s about 67 minutes long, and I still can’t believe that I managed to sit through it. It’s atrocious, it’s ghastly, it’s…

… it’s…

… sigh. It’s an underrated film.

It’s not nearly as bad as it’s made out to be. Well, it is, but nowhere near to how boring people say it is. It’s actually one of the most entertaining films I’ve seen of all time. It’s now one of my favourites, due to just how ludicrously stupid and funny it is. I was in stitches, and I highly recommend this film to anyone who likes the fascinatingly awful and the terribly entertaining. Manos – The Hands of Fate; it gets my seal of approval. Sorry, I mean ‘the MAH-star will app-PRUVE!’

ROB STOAKES REVIEWS - Carry On Camping

Sponge Culture Reviews
Rob Stoakes Reviews

Carry On Camping
1969
Gerald Thomas
The Rank Organisation

Prologue

British humour. What exactly is ‘British Humour’? Humour that originates in Britain? Obviously, but British Humour is also used to describe a genre of comedy. Obscure jokes about dead composers? Well, name one joke from The Young Ones that entailed this, and Fraiser’s an American show and it doesn’t stop them. Silly and surreal humour? Well, yes, Monty Python and the Goon Show are British, but Spongebob Squarepants and Arrested Development aren’t. Simply funny? Well, the snobbier Brit will say that no other country has ever been funny and every British comedy is genius, but then you watch Carry On Camping.

For those without the knowledge of British cinema’s longest lasting cancer, the Carry On films were a series of low budget comedy films lasting from the mid 1950’s to the late 70’s, with 31 films in the series. As you can imagine, this isn’t exactly a series known not to fester but it had a fairly clever device to avoid such stagnation. Rather than have a series of films with the same actors playing the same characters, the actors would play different characters in different situations. This tied into the fact that the place they were filming, Pinewood Studios, were filming a lot of different films during this period, so they’d just use the same sets and make a parody. For example, Carry On Cleo was a parody of Cleopatra which came out around about the same time, and Carry On Screaming was a parody of hammer horror films, lather rinse repeat. First problem; the actors would always play the same actors anyway. Second problem; Carry On Camping was set in a muddy field. Why? Well, let’s find out. Or rather, we don’t and instead I don’t have to watch this horrible, stupid mess.

Plot

So our film opens with a load of nude women running around.

Yep, we’re in a Carry On film all right.

No, this is a film about nudist camps which everyone in the audience is disgusted by, which begs the question as to why they decided to see it. Well, Sid James’ character isn’t, also called Sid, therefore making my job of remembering his name easier. He’s gone with his girlfriend Joan, played by Joan Sims, and his friend Bernie, played by, guess who, a guy named Bernard. Bernard Bresslaw, to be precise, who oddly enough will go on to star in Hawk the Slayer and Krull. A strange transition. Bernie’s brought his own girlfriend Anthea, who will do nothing, say nothing, and basically be nothing in his film. So the four of them are arguing about the fact that Sid and Bernie are pervs and Joan and Nobody are prudes. THIS SCENE CONTRIBUTES SO MUCH!!!

Now we meet Peter, a portly gentleman who quite clearly wants to go to somewhere sunny for holiday, like Monte Carlo, only to see that his wife is packing a load of camping gear. He’s a meek and weak-willed tub, who is bullied by his domineering wife. This actually starts to be quite creepy, as if it were the moment in the horror film were the murderer snaps. When they’re talking about how a goat ate its way into Peter’s tent and shat on him, his wife laughs a torturous laugh that makes me beg for Scratch from the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog and mentions how they both had a good laugh, to which Peter says ‘Yes, you did, didn’t you.” In an insanely foreboding voice no less. And this isn’t the only time. He just is constantly about to snap, summon his unholy army and butcher the entire cast.

He also repeatedly talks about his day at work, lying to his oblivious wife. The film claims these are lies, with events involving strip clubs, opium, harems, but seeing as this is Satan we’re talking about, he’s obviously truthful in describing these hedonistic acts. His wife angers him with her insistence in going to a camp, so he tears up his Monte Carlo brochure, turns his wife into a goat and drains her of her blood.

Now we go to a camping shop, with Charles Hawtrey, the gawky glasses one, playing Charlie (surprise) a naïve first-time camper who wants to go camping but has never done it before. He is first seen in a tent with a young sexy shop assistant, and it’s quite clearly a misunderstanding, with jokes like “She was teaching me how to stick the pole up” being rampant, but all I can think of it Charles Hawtrey’s winky, which is as bad sights go is up there with an earthquake in New York, Margaret Thatcher in a cold shower and a day out in Hull. Sid and Bernie come in the shop, talking about how their girlfriends aren’t bonking them despite three months of dating (Sid, you look sixty, OF COURSE you aren’t getting bonked) and how they’ll take them to that nudist camp from earlier without telling them. Great idea! Because that’s how you win someone’s trust… lie to them, take them to a nudist camp and ask them to bonk you.

Now we cut to an all-girls school in the middle of a catfight between Barbara Windsor and some other bird, all wearing short skirts, before having an orgy with some builders.

Yep, we’re in a Carry On film all right.

This is inter-cut with the only two redeemable characters, even though they’re considered the stuffy kill-joys. The matron Miss Haggard, played by Hattie Jacques in the same damn role she always plays, and the always brilliant Kenneth Williams as, well, Kenneth Williams. A prudish, upper-class, incredibly gay yet incredibly straight at the same time and really not getting paid enough for this work. He and Miss Haggard have a genuinely funny scene, so of course it lasts less than a minute.

Then we cut to Satan and his wife setting off for the camping site on a tandem. Satan on a Tandem… that’s the name for an indie band if I’ve ever heard one.

Then we cut to Sid, Bernie, Joan and Sir-Not-Appearing-In-This-Review setting off for the camp as well. In the world’s smallest car…

Speaking of cars, Kenneth Williams, Miss Haggard and the girls of the school all go to the camp in the world’s largest bus. Well, it’s not a bus, more of an oil tanker. Barbara Windsor struts about in a swimsuit (?) much to the delight of Luke Skywalker.

The bawdiness is strong with you, but you are not a matron yet.

Now, I didn’t think that I’d ever compare a Carry On film to Little Mermaid 2, but like that sick, the plot just stops for the next forty five minutes. They all just try to get to the camp. Sid, Bernie, Joan and the Invisible Woman get there first, only to find out that it isn’t a nudist camp and that it’s just an expensive car park with more mud than Glastonbury Festival ran by a greedy farmer called A. Fiddler (because he’s who I want in charge of my money). The schoolgirls get there half an hour later with Charlie, stopping at a Youth Hostel for a few shenanigans, with Matron falling in love with Kenneth Williams who’s too busy repeatedly thwarting Luke Skywalker’s attempts to penetrate the ventilation shafts of any of the girls’ secret bases and use his Lightsabre to oh god now I’m doing it. They come just before Beelzebub and his wife, who were joined by Charlie, a character so inconsequential it’s actually funnier than any of his real jokes. Now we’re all here, something will happen, right?

No, this is a Carry On film, remember. This has to be less eventful than any given Final Fantasy fanfic. All that does happen is that Sid and Bernie try to get off with Babs (Barbara Windsor’s character, are you surprised she’s called ‘Babs’?) and her friend and the Prince of Darkness wanders around being irate. Anything of note happening? NO! NO NO NO NO NO! THIS IS SO BORING! THIS IS A SHIT FILM! HELP ME! HELP ME! AAARRRGGGHHH!!!

So all the girls go to a monastery at the ten minutes to go point, with Sid, Bernie, Joan and Doctor Mysterious joining them. However, one of the girls doesn’t go, who is charmed by Lucifer’s black magic into taking him back to her tent in a scene I guess was put in at the actor’s request. Meanwhile, Sid disguises himself as a monk to get with Babs, who tells him that at nights out they’ll get out for a bit of bonking. OUR PROTAGONIST! A LYING CHEATING SCUMBAG! I think I’ve worked out the inspiration for Aladdin. This is done while Belial goes back to his wife and Charlie, who has been sleeping in their tent since they got here, and he destroys them both in a grand pit, carving pentagrams on their foreheads and burning them at the feet of his new wench in a blood ritual of the grandest of scales. Then Matron tries to get it on with Kenneth Williams despite his desperate pleadings not to.

It wouldn’t be funny if it was the other way around, would it?

On a tangent here, but I’m really fed up of this joke, where a woman decides that a man is desperate to bonk her while he says no, because, well, I’ve seen it too many times. This is pulled in a lot of films, and is generally considered funny. BECAUSE SEX WITH ONE ADULT NOT CONSENTING BECOMES FUNNY WHEN IT’S A BLOKE WHO DOESN’T WANT IT! HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!! HAAAAA! HAAAAAA! HAAAAAAAAAAA! Seriously, how is this actually funny? I mean, it’s not exactly a situation you can pull a lot of jokes out of, and it’s not even timed well. It’s just bizarre and out of place. I can’t actually think of any situation it WOULD be funny. It’s part of a whole domineering-wife joke which has been done too many times to be amusing anymore, and this is just a slightly racier version of that, and because this is a Carry On film, we can’t do without raciness. Somebody name me an instance this hasn’t been a tired, clichéd and derivative joke.

And yes, the thing I find the most annoying about a comedic rape scene is that I’ve seen it too many times. I’m a cold dead robot with a heart of obsidian. Pity me.

So, with five minutes to go before the end of the film, the main plot begins. That’s right. FIVE MINUTES UNTIL THE END!!! It turns out all the girls have gone to a concert in the field next door, and the band the Flowerbuds (I’m serious) are causing a bit of a racket. Actually, it’s more because the crowd is full of hippies, and this is late sixties British forty somethings being angry at essentially nothing, and all this sequence does is make me wish I was at a concert right now. So all the campers drive them away, by attaching them all to a string and pulling them on a tractor…

… but the hippies have taken the girls with them. Oh no, whatever will we do without such developed and intricate characters? Kenneth Williams and Matron give chase, taking Baphomet’s tandem, but he fears not. He tells his wife; “We won’t need it in Monte Carlo. We’ll go on a ferry, with the camping gear, and dump it all over the side.’ His wife initially looks shocked, but then the devil gives her one look, and her mood changes. I would change my tune if confronted with the Antichrist. And Sid and Bernie admit to Joan and Miss Non-Existent 1969 that they were going to have a sexy party with the girls, and the punishment? They must have a sexy party with them instead! OF COURSE! IT MAKES PERFECT SENSE!

Acting/Characters

This is just about as close to being good as a Carry On film can be, because, in all fairness, everybody does an amazing job. Sid James is the Cockney pervert, Bernard Bresslaw is the big gullible idiot, Joan Sims is the disapproving eye-rolling nanny, Hattie James is the matron, Charles Hawtrey is meek and mild and Kenneth Williams is Kenneth Williams. And there’s a reason they’re so good at these parts. Do you want to know what that reason could possibly be? I’ll give you three guesses.

No.

Not that either.

That’s right. THEY’VE ALL PLAYED THESE CHARACTERS BEFORE!

Sid James isn’t a good Cockney pervert here. He’s ALWAYS a Cockney pervert. The entire cast is almost like an opposite to Timothy Dalton, because while Dalton stopped being Bond to avoid being type-cast, these guys have built their entire career on being typecast this film is SO STUPID!!! ARRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!

Humour

What humour?

Well, have you ever seen a Carry On film? Congratulations are in order, for you can see into the future as to what this film classifies as humour. For those who haven’t, you are officially dead. However, if the picture below is any clue…

… get the main focus?

Yes, it’s double entendres, busty ladies, trombones going ‘waa, waa, waa waa waa, waa, waa’ whenever a teenager with a big bottom walks by and all things bawdy in general. American Pie based their humour on that entirely too, and they all (yes, all of them) suckled gonads, but at least they didn’t do it for 31 films. This is the 17th film, and, really, rather than being painful it’s just sad. While the not the festival of torture Carry On Dick was, this is clearly where the writers started running out of ideas, and considering how little ideas Carry On had normally, this is a damn poor attempt. Consider this fact; the most famous joke from this film is that Barbara Windsor’s bra flies off during a stretching exercise. I think they did something like that in Carry On Teacher, but the main difference is, of course, THAT FILM WASN’T SHIT!!!

Final Word

Whose idea was this?

I mean, why a camping holiday? Did we really need a film about Sid James going on a fucking holiday? How did this even get past the planning stages? THEY SHOULD’VE KILLED IT WHEN THEY HAD THE CHANCE! Even considering that this was a Carry On film, could somebody had noticed that nobody liked Carry On films at this point… and the worst thing is that this is considered the best of them. Because humanity is stupid. Seriously, it’s remembered because of one scene. ONE! SCENE! Would you like to guess? I mentioned it in the last paragraph. That’s right. Barbara Windsor getting her knockers out. Because who needs comedic timing, a plot that stays focused, clever writing and indeed a budget when you have breasts? I know the Internet didn’t exist before 1969, but there were the other Carry On films, and indeed real life women if you have half decent social skills, and they didn’t have Barbara Windsor’s bizarre laugh.

This isn’t quite when the series went downhill, I would say. The series was tumbling in a downward spiral long before this film was made. I’d more say this was the point of no return. This is the capstone to the mess that was Carry On films, a last pitiable spasm of a dying horse, and to be honest watching said horse die slowly, pathetically, is beyond more entertaining than this film. So this week, go out and kill a horse and watch it die. THE END OF THE REVIEW! GO HOME!

The Beginning of Let's Play Metroid Fusion

Hey, Rob here, just to let you know of a new show to Sponge Culture; Let's Play. For now, I'm doing Metroid Fusion, a solid game to be sure, though it's pretty easy to take the mickey out on. Of the eleven Metroid games, I've played eight, the ones I haven't played being Metroid Prime 1, 2 and 3. Of the others, five sit quite comfortably in my favourite games of all time, though this is the lowest of those. It's probably the most linear besides Other M (my views on that tripe have been made very clear in the Top 5 Good Series Gone Bad) but besides that, it's damn good. My personal fave is still Super Metroid, but again, Fusion was far easier to take the mick out of, and it's shorter too. Anyway, here's the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2UYpZGg-5Q

I'll try and make this new video thing as regular as possible, but bear with me, as I've not got the best of hardware, software or indeed ware of any kind. Sound recording didn't even work, so my voice will remain unheard until I can find a way to sort that stuff out. Sorries.

Sadly, there's no review next week due to time constraints and unforseen circumstances.

ROB STOAKES REVIEWS - The Return of Jafar

Sponge Culture Reviews
Rob Stoakes Reviews

THE RETURN OF JAFAR
1994
TAD STONES
WALT DISNEY HOME VIDEO

Prologue

Pfffft! BAAA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!

So, Disney, you made Lion King, a film that is widely considered to be one of the greatest animated films of all time, one of the greatest family films of all time, one of the greatest films of the 90’s, and this is what you follow it up with? A film so bad, Robin Williams turned it down? ROBIN WILLIAMS! He was in Ferngully of all things! No wonder it was direct-to-video, even you thought it was horrible! Disney thought this was too bad for cinemas! For the record, The Black Cauldron, Tarzan and frigging Lilo and Stitch all were released in cinemas. And this film was the one you said ‘no, the world does not need this’ when you released Brother Bear?

Yes, it’s pretty easy to rag on Disney sequels, but actually, they have potential for greatness. Rescuer’s Down Under wasn’t just as good as the original, it was way better. And Lion King 2 was pretty good… it certainly wasn’t as good as Lion King, but to be fair, it’s like putting George Formby in the boxing ring against George Foreman. And besides, at the time, nobody knew to stay away when the words ‘Disney sequel’ showed up, and a lot of people like the original Aladdin. I won’t say it was my favourite, however. I thought it was kind of stupid, but I was somewhat entertained, I could do a lot worse, and it certainly wasn’t bad. Besides, picking between Aladdin and any other Robin Williams film… actually, I’d go for the incredibly silly and incredibly interesting Hook, but that’s beside the point. So plenty watched, and plenty suffered. And now, we will continue this ritual, by watching The Return of Jafar and experiencing a pain not unlike castrating yourself with a corkscrew while blindfolded.

Plot

So our story begins with the classic song Arabian Knights, though after the lyrics have been changed, and instead of the original singer it’s sung by a warbling vulture choking on lemonade. During this torture, we watch some men with absurd facial hair and chins (compared to the original Aladdin, that’s saying something) ride through the night. These are robbers who have just stolen from… somewhere. They make it quite clear that they hate their bumbling and greedy leader, who decides that he gets a bigger share. However, a treasure chest they stole seems to move by itself, until they find that it’s… Aboo! Aladdin’s monkey! And here’s Aladdin himself, looking rather shabby despite becoming a prince in the last film. Him and the robbers have a standard duel, with Aladdin taking the loot for himself and beating the robbers senseless, probably breaking their bones after dropping them eighty foot onto sharp objects as he rides away with a dementedly evil expression on his face. What a hero!

We cut to see Iago, Jafar’s parrot, dig Jafar out of the sand. Just to recap, Jafar’s a genie stuck in a lamp now, and he demands that Iago release him. They get in an argument, which results in Iago turning on Jafar and dropping him into a well. Why he didn’t just let Jafar go them remind him of the whole ‘three wishes’ business and just ask for a load of shit before dropping him into a well makes no sense, but Iago has never been the smartest of God’s creatures. Oh, and he sings a dreadful song about the fact that he’s going to look out for himself and have no friends and whatever.

Aladdin flies over Agrabar, throwing his money all over the place to show just how selfless and kind and whatever else he is, though keeping the most valuable item to give to a heavily mutated Jasmine. Honestly, look it up. Her head is shaped like a squashed olive, her neck is the size of her toothpick and the artists have forgotten how to draw shoulders. Or hips. Or muscle definition. Or legs, or eyes, or indeed any body part other than her ridiculous cleavage. I didn’t know cleavages carried on past the skin and onto the clothes. She also sounds as if she’s twelve for some reason.

So, we once again cut back to Iago. MOVIE! CHOOSE A SCENE AND FOCUS ON IT! And, now we go back to Aladdin, then to Iago in the span of a minute. Stop! STOP! Anyway, Iago has the idea of befriending Aladdin and everyone else before tricking them and taking control of Agrabar himself, because everyone will be inclined to obeying a parrot. Of course, Aladdin says ‘bitch, get o’er ‘ere and get yourself a bitch slap!’ and they end up meeting the robbers from before, and there’s a fight scene where Aladdin attempts to fight off several guys with sharpened steel scimitars with a wooden stick he picked off the ground. I can see this ending well.

Things look bad for Aladdin, until Iago saves him from the robbers, and we discover that the robber leader’s name is ‘Abis Mal’ which is an accurate description of this movie. Aladdin rewards Iago’s selflessness by locking him up in a bird cage and saying that he’ll get a proper hearing, like any other criminal would. Aladdin! Saviour of the innocent! The diamond in the rough! An ungrateful little shit who rewards selflessness with imprisonment! OUR HERO!

Aladdin decides for some reason not to tell Jasmine that he’s found Iago for, some, reason? Of course, leading to the farce scene you’ve seen in every single film ever made. Jasmine immediately suspects something, but is interrupted by Homer Simpson, I mean Genie. He acts like… well, like he did in the first film, presenting pop culture references that wouldn’t exist in Medieval Persia, BECAUSE IT WAS SO FUCKING FUNNY IN THE FIRST FILM HA HA HA HA HA HA! This time, they actually manage to sum just about everything you could think of in one song sequence. That won’t top him from carrying this bullshit throughout the rest of the film. Anyway, they all decide to go to the dinner, except Aboo, who has to guard Iago. I SEE HIJINKS A COMING!

We aren’t even at the 15 minute mark and I already want to die.

Anyway, Abis Mal comes across Jafar’s lamp. Jafar tricks Abis Mal into wasting two of his wishes, and tells him that he wants revenge on Aladdin. Abis Mal wants revenge too, but Jafar stops him, saying that they can’t just kill Aladdin because he’s a genie, but instead make him suffer. Why Abis Mal doesn’t just say ‘I wish that Aladdin experiences crushing despair and misfortune from now until his measly, pathetic life ends’ will always escape me, but it seems Jafar and Abis Mal aren’t too clever either.

But we have no time for story, we have more of Earthworm Jim’s, I mean, Genie’s antics. Wooo! Look at him go! Oh Genie, we’ll never grow tired of you. Anyway, Aladdin becomes the Royal Vizier, or adviser, because if Aladdin has shown anything, he’s shown that he’s trustworthy, despite lying about being a prince, lying about not knowing where Iago is and lying about where he got the Jewelled Flower he gave Jasmine, but hey, baby steps.

Back to Iago and PICK A SCENE AND FOCUS ON IT!!! … Aboo lets Iago out of the cage, only to allow that tiger to try and eat him. This causes in Iago being discovered and Aladdin has to explain. Rather than give the real reason (He saved my life) he makes one up (he was tricked by Jafar into being evil). Why he doesn’t just say the real reason, seeing as it’ll probably go down better, escapes me. I guess everyone’s been hit with the stupid stick today. So, Iago is nearly killed and everyone hates Aladdin for being a lying dick-weasel. Truly, he is a worthy Royal Vizier! Aladdin begins moaning to Genie about ‘whenever I try to do good, it always goes wrong, waa waa waa’ because lying to everybody makes you a fucking Paragon of justice, right?

Iago ponders about whether he owes Aladdin for saving his hide, without considering that he saved Aladdin’s life so they’re technically square. Genie goads him on, trying to convince Iago to do good by telling him it will be a challenge. Fuelled on, Iago decides to help Aladdin and Jasmine by making things better, by first singing to Jasmine, telling that he’s a lying dick, which is a strange course of action, and Iago is obviously wrong because… wait, it isn’t. Why are we supposed to be siding with Aladdin again? He’s a compulsive liar, even when he doesn’t need to. Anyway, instead of making Aladdin and Jasmine hate each other, for some reason Iago stating the facts makes… it… all… better? Sorry, why? Imagine if Romeo and Juliet worked like that?

“Juliet, Romeo stabbed Tybalt!”
“Oh, I still love him for unexplained reasons…”

Oh, wait, that actually did happen. Even in Shakespeare, true love is unrelentingly stupid.

So why is Aboo wearing a skirt?

So, Abis Mal and Jafar break into the palace, and they watch from afar as Aladdin, who has changed back into his street-rat clothes for whatever reason, and Jasmine have a romantic moment. However, villainy is afoot, for Jafar reveals that Iago will help him destroy Aladdin! MWUH HA HA HA wait, Iago doesn’t work for you anymore. Anyway, the romantic moment is interrupted by Genie’s HIGH-larious antics. Oh Genie, your humour is timeless.

Anyway, Iago’s enjoying the profits of being a good guy, talking to himself for some reason about how he’ll simply wait for Aladdin to become Sultan, then become Vizier, then his evil plan to wait until HE gets the throne will commence! AH HA HA HA wait, your lifespan isn’t as long as Aladdin’s. Anyway, Jafar comes along and tells Iago to lead Aladdin into a trap. Iago tries to warn Aladdin, but is interrupted by more of Genie’s HIIII-larious antics. AAAAAAH HA HA HAA HAAAA!!! Oh, you lovable rapscallion.

Anyway, Iago gets Aladdin to take the Sultan away from the palace, where Jafar attacks the Robot Devil, I mean Genie, and Aboo, but not AFTER SINGING A SONG! WOOO! I love my films to have more songs than actors.

Abis Mal, meanwhile, makes himself busy with capturing the Sultan. Aladdin puts two and two together and realises that Iago is a bad guy. Well, maybe you shouldn’t have locked him up, you massive gonk! He gives chase, but is batted away easily, with the carpet being captured. Aladdin gets back to the palace, only to be imprisoned for the murder of the Sultan. The evidence? A slashed up turban and a knife! Of course! The perfect evidence! I mean, there’s neither a body nor any evidence of Aladdin killing him if the Sultan actually was murdered, but dammit, we have a torn-up hat! THAT IS ALL WE NEED! I mean, I know detectives back then weren’t great, but surely they could’ve guessed that if somebody murdered the Sultan and took the body, he wouldn’t have left the hat as well.

Later, Aladdin is taken to be executed on the platform where the White Tree of Gondor used to be, but Iago releases the postman from Olive the Other Reindeer, I mean Genie, who in turn releases everybody else. Ten minutes of them being captured is immediately resolved. WHOOP DI BLOODY DOO, CAN THIS MOVIE BE OVER, PLEASE?

So, Iago and the others part ways because, um, Samus is a chick? Aladdin, Jasmine, Genie, the Sultan, Aboo and the Carpet reason that if they destroy the lamp, they destroy Jafar. Why they can’t just use Jafar to make three wishes is beyond me, but once again, the stupid stick is having a field day. So Abis Mal and Jafar are now in charge of the world, and Jafar asks Abis Mal to use his third wish to free him, but Abis Mal suddenly gains four points of wisdom by simply milking this opportunity for all its worth, demanding Jafar gives him more stuff until he makes his wish. Then Aladdin and company attempt to take the lamp and Jafar sends the lamp flying into the garden. Now it’s a race to the lamp, but seeing as Jafar can’t actually kill them due to being a genie, and nobody will kill them for him, it’s more a matter of simply impeding their progress for a while and staving off the inevitable, so there’s no real tension. And even if there was, you know Iago’s coming back in three, two, one…

Our courageous hero?

Oh, wow, Iago’s here. What a surprise. Though he does get zapped once, taking the tension up an incredibly tiny and insignificant notch. So the lamp is destroyed and everyone is saved from the thing that couldn’t kill them anyway and the film ends, along with my life as I hung myself around the halfway mark in sheer despair.

Acting/Characters

The acting in this film is boring. Not really too much to say, with most of the actors from the first Aladdin reprising their roles with little change. Aladdin is still played as a good-hearted if a little dim hero, Jasmine awkwardly shifting from cynical spiteful bitch to doe-eyed love-pillow and Gilbert Gottfried’s squawking squealing Iago finding new ways to rape my eardrums harshly. Then there’s Dan Castellaneta as the Genie. He’s what is often used as the whacking stick to beat this film with, and surprisingly I’ll take the film’s side, because Dan Castellaneta does a good job. I’d say a better job than Robin Williams, in fact. Sure, Robin Williams was manic and got pretty much all the jokes, but he was ANNOYING AS! Castellaneta isn’t quite as fasted paced or as loud, not like William’s kangaroo on amphetamines approach, but he certainly didn’t make me want to lynch myself.

As for the characters the actors play, that’s not so forgivable. Firstly, Aladdin isn’t a heroic character, a lying cheating scumbag who has a complete disregard for anybody’s life that isn’t directly tied to his own. Secondly, the other characters are as indistinct as a muddy blob at Glastonbury Festival. They do nothing, say nothing and contribute nothing important besides Jafar, who in all honesty has about ten minutes at best in this film. And thirdly, and the biggest dick move of all, why is Iago the main character? He gets more screen time than anybody else, does more and ultimately saves the day. But, the thing is, HE’S THE VILLAIN’S LACKEY! That’s what he was always meant to be, the comic relief. Why is he suddenly the main focus of the story? I’m all for changing the formula, but Iago? If Ridley Scott decided ‘right, I’m going to make Bladerunner 2, and the main character will be Pris, Roy Batty’s lackey’ we’d think that he had gone insane, and here we are with Disney pooping this concept awkwardly into our laps. Please kill me.

Animation

As I mentioned earlier, the character designs aren’t particularly astounding. Proportion seems to be a recurring problem, for a start. It seems Aladdin is the only person in the word with shoulders, everyone else just having their arms jut out of their chest awkwardly. But the colours… oh, boy, the colours… this film might have one of the most putrid colour schemes in a Disney film. Firstly, there’s a strange absence of shadows. It looks like a colouring book more than a feature length movie, with only block colours that are often reused in other places. For example, when near bright light, instead of the character’s shadows being made smaller but darker and having everything else made brighter, the character will turn red and yellow. I’m dead fucking serious, the characters are made of glass and paper in this film.

And as for the animation itself, well, there’s not a great deal OF it. It’s not quite on the level of PowerPoint presentations, but it’s not too much better. The animation applies to the focus of the scene and ONLY the focus of the scene. Anyone in a shot who’s in the background or sometimes simply not talking has a weird collective habit of suddenly being struck by rigor mortis, just standing blankly in the exact same position as they were before they finished their action, their eyes glazed, cold and dead, unaware of their surroundings, staring out into the void, like a rational human being after being forced to watch any anime. The animation itself is passable, though not quite on the usual level of Disney. More like one of their TV cartoons than a feature length film. A shit cartoon. Drawn by a drunken gibbon.

Final Word

Some might say this film is good for kids. These are the people who think that a diet consisting of knives is also good for kids. For the rest of us, this film will slowly melt your brain. The story is a shambling complicated mess, acting like a child with ADD on a sugar-high. The animation has about as much motion as a dead tortoise. The art is a disastrous amalgam of bizarre proportions, a complete lack of colour coordination and a desire to make the viewer vomit. It’s only real claims to fame are that Homer Simpson is in it and Square Enix stuck a level based on it in their god awful Kingdom Hearts series for reasons I will never understand. To be honest, this film spelt the format for Disney sequels, and I’d sooner recommend fellating a mechanic squid.

IT’S INDIAN SANTA CLAUS!!!