Croc-O-Dyle Reviews

Joy Ride 2: Dead Ahead (2008 Video)

Trouble sleeping? Watch this.

[1/10 · 18 October 2008]

Here comes another entry in the recent wave of direct-to-video sequels to horror movies released theatrically a few years ago. However, unlike "Wrong Turn 2" or "Hollow Man 2", this is not a sequel to a decent horror flick, but rather a followup to "Joy Ride", 2002's mediocre ripoff of "The Hitcher".

Some room for improvement, then? Possibly. But in the hand of director Whatshisname, all wasted.

The "plot", such as it is, carbon-copies all road chase movies that came before, from "Duel", to "Mirage", to the first "Joy Ride" - two couples, one car, one evil trucker. The dialogue repeats "Rusty Nail's" original quips, for those who need direct references to understand what they're watching, and the performances are exactly such as can be expected from a direct-to-video road slasher.

However, since this one came out after "Hostel", there is of course a "torture" scene that is torturous to sit through - but only for the viewer, because of its boredom - and a chase so exciting I fell asleep through it twice. Then, a while later, comes a shot that seems to be the most exciting thing the director has ever seen in his life.

The package comes complete with a "surprise" conclusion - stolen both from "Duel" *and* the original "Joy Ride's" alternate DVD ending - sure to surprise many viewers under the age of 7. (The ending and the dialogue isn't the only thing recycled from the original; this "sequel" steals even a deleted scene from its predecessor, only adding a "funny" line about jaws to it...)

In other words, yet another cheap, idiotic video "sequel" to avoid.

Snuff: A Documentary About Killing on Camera (2008)

The distinct smell of FAKENESS

[1/10 · 19 September 2008]

There is a really good documentary on the subject of snuff - and it's not this one. The good one, The Dark Side: Does Snuff Exist?, is not only better designed, but has a more sensible look at the subject, too. This one, on the other hand, feels like a bad attempt to shoot a "real horror movie" disguised as a documentary. The main selling point, the segment about seeing supposedly genuine snuff (hey, what do you know, a producer of a documentary on snuff just conveniently happened to have seen a real snuff tape! What an amazing coincidence!), felt like a badly acted lie. In fact, it sounded pretty much like a copy of a story that an Israeli journalist wrote about a few years ago, except of course that the Israeli claimed that he was the one who saw the tapes.

Then there's that Russian crime ring tale that makes up the other half of the documentary and that smells even fishier. If it was true, you'd think there'd be some more sources that wrote about it, other than one English tabloid and one Italian tabloid. In fact, it should be a worldwide sensation present in all media for months (remember Fritzl?), but there's not a word of it in any major newspaper ANYWHERE. Plus, those allegedly real Russians supposedly kidnapped and killed dozens, but they were released after a few years because of "overcrowding"? And then one of them goes and wins a pool contest? All it's missing is a UFO and a crop circle.

And it certainly doesn't help the documentary at all that most of the "experts" interviewed in it look and act like drugged, cackling maniacs. One of them makes Tom Cruise seem calm and collected.

What seemed like an interesting documentary turns out to be either utterly fabricated, or horribly (read: not at all) researched. Skip this and catch "The Dark Side" instead.

Chaos (I) (2005)

So very dull, so completely plot less, so pathetically pointless.

[1/10 · 9 December 2006]

One day, a wrestler (count the number of the letters in his name and you will still come up with a higher number than his IQ) decided to plagiarize Wes Craven's mediocre debut from the 70s... and in less than a year he vomitted out this "film", a horrifyingly dull attempt at offending and probably "shocking" everyone. A very failed attempt, needless to say. Wrestler, keep this in your "mind" (if you had one): one can only offend and shock when one represents something. A mosquito won't offend me, a worm won't shock me... why should I react any differently to a sad attempt by a pathetic subhuman wrestler? Just ignore him and in time he will die, alone and forgotten, and hopefully with "Chaos" being the only "film" he'll ever have made.