Sorry monkey...we all know that when The Asylum is involved, common sense has to die a terrible, poorly produced death.

Donkey: We all love music on some level, whether it serves as an artist prism through which we relate to the world around us or merely as a basic bass line that we use to jackhammer our crotches into the hips of a woman too busy supplementing her lack of self esteem with an metric ton of alcohol to dismiss our inane attempts at seduction. But when it comes to the various categories of music lovers, the group that I always found the most interesting was those who seemed all too happy to dismiss their favorite groups as “sell-outs” the moment someone actually cut them a cheque big enough that they as a collective could afford a whole pack of Big League Chew. When I first got into music as a teenager, I wondered if these people actually believed that musicians are only respectable artists when they’re sleeping on a friend’s couch after putting in a solid day of toiling in obscurity, but eventually I concluded that even the most pompous amongst us has to truly know in their heart of hearts (medically referred to as your chest balls) that no one could possibly be stupid enough to turn down the chance to get paid to do something they love. Besides, if you only consider something to be truly artistic when it’s yowled from the underwhelming mouth of those with an income-earning disability, then I’d gladly refer you to a few homeless people I’ve met in my time who would be more than happy to give you a mind-blowing sidewalk rendition of Right Said Fred’s I’m Too Sexy in exchange for a patient ear that will stick around afterward to listen to the long, painful story of how they lost their left shoe. When I really stopped to think about it, the answer became quite clear. These people didn’t care so much about money or the illusion of artistic integrity so much as they were simply angry that everyone else had suddenly jumped on a bandwagon that they had found first. To this day I have never once experienced that kind of jealous pouting for myself. But I will admit that recently in the arena of movies, I came close.

After having spent so much time devoted to a website dedicated to protecting the world from the horrors awaiting them should they stumble across certain movies that few had ever heard of – particularly the works of one particular production company – you can imagine my surprise when I came across a major website detailing “the most watched trailers of 2009” only to find an Asylum film prominently displayed on the list. You heard me: the most watched trailers of the goddamn year. Every other movie was a major studio release that undoubtedly served as spank material for a legion of fanboys (Avatar, Transformers: Rise Of The Fallen, Terminator Salvation) and yet there it was amongst them, standing out like a moderately attractive woman in a Warhammer shop: Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus. Garnering a huge following after its trailer was unleashed upon YouTube, people apparently flocked to it in droves because of the combination of a ridiculous name and some of the signature Asylum scenes that you and I would expect, which can only be described as a God-forsaken attack on your nervous system. But the insanity didn’t stop there. I soon discovered that with the unexpected success of that movie, The Asylum decided to release a similarly themed follow up in the form of Mega Piranha.

The hype was stunning, but all we could think was…really? This movie? Of all Asylum movies, this is the one people notice? With the incentive of having so many people know it, we knew that we’d have to address it. And since its pseudo-sequel was so closely tied in every regard, limiting our conversation to one of them simply won’t be good enough. Like tearing the Band-Aid off quickly, it just makes sense to tackle them both at once. So with well-documented history that has earned us a small measure of authority, join us as we wade through the path of destruction left in their wake as we examine these latest atrocities, deciding not only which one if the better movie but also if the victor is truly worthy of The Asylum’s lineage.

The Plot:

Spoiler Alert: Despite the misleading poster, this movie is actually about the two deadliest combatants in a regional chess championship.

Donkey: Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus begins beneath the waves of the Pacific just off the shores of Alaska while bombarding us with underwater stock footage of what is clearly not anywhere near Alaska. There we join a marine researcher named Emma who appears to be researching nothing in particular when she unexpectedly witnesses a pod of whales to freak out due to a nearby sonar test, resulting in them smashing into the massive ice wall of a nearby glacier. This causes the soon discovered icy tomb to eventually shatter and free a pair of deadly adversaries that have been frozen in time; the fabled Mega Shark and Giant Octopus. Instantly revived after countless centuries, the two beasts immediately rocket off in different directions and proceed to wreak havoc across the world in ways you couldn’t possibly imagine unless your parents had decided to potty train you as a child by punching you directly in the brain. With no one willing to listen to her recounting of the tale she had witnessed, Emma enlists the help of her old professor, Lamar, and his Japanese colleague, Shimada who joins them after an oil rig off the coast of Japan is taken down by the Giant Octopus. But it’s not long before this dream team has company in trying to Encyclopedia Brown the case, as the US Navy finally begins to recognize the peril that they’re facing when the Mega Shark sinks a fucking battleship just by ramming it with its face. Brought in to provide counsel under the watchful eye of shadowy government official, our three musketeers are charged with the task of finding a way to stop the ancient menaces. After a plan involving pheromones and what I’m guessing would have been a couple of dudes in scuba suits ready to give giant hand jobs fails miserably, the military is ready to jump straight to the nuclear option when our trio finally comes up with a plan that sends the ancient warriors back to the cold depths for all time.

Sounds pretty good, huh? Or at the very least a better way to pass 90 minutes than staring into the void of oblivion while mentally reliving all your past failures? Well, you’re half right. So the question becomes: how can you possibly follow that up? If you don’t know the answer to that, then you really haven’t been paying attention to Asylum movies.

"To save mankind"? Why would any experiment for the good of mankind involve goddamn piranhas? That would be like trying to develop a more reliable family sedan by testing on AIDS.

Enter Mega Piranha. After being awaken in his dank apartment by the Secretary of State via a video phone that doesn’t actually exist, Jason Fitch – Special Forces – is sent to Venezuela to investigate the mysterious death of a US ambassador who was killed on a river cruise. But Fitch can’t possibly be ready for what awaits him as he arrives in the country just to be accosted at the airport by Sarah Monroe, a genetics professor from UCLA whose research is directly responsible for the events leading up to his assignment. It is explained that Fitch has actually arrived to face a catastrophic danger about to engulf all of humanity in the form an escaped strain of killer piranha that are expanding exponentially in size after being developed in her lab. Until now, Sarah’s pleas for help have been ignored by Colonel Diaz, a military junta commander, but all that changes when Fitch confirms her story by traveling to the local river, engaging in an underwater knife fight with a school of the killer fish, and capturing a specimen that jumps out onto the riverbank after him. He delivers the obviously rubber corpse to Sarah’s team and the news of his discovery to Diaz. Forced into action, Diaz finally does his part by firing blindly into the river from a few helicopters, managing to accomplish nothing more than freeing the menace even further by breaking the only natural dam in their path. Then just to be a dick, he arrests Monroe and her team, blaming them for the crisis and calling the fish a CIA plot, which is probably the only rational explanation of why you’d be bio-genetically enhancing piranhas, if you think about it. But their incarceration is short-lived as Fitch springs them in a daringly uneventful rescue just before the full horror of the evil piranha is revealed in an attack on the city by the now-giant fish for no reason I could possibly comprehend. In the face of the expanding danger, Fitch and the gang plan an attack where the local river meets the ocean, hoping that the piranha will stop there since they are fresh water fish. But the massive US battleship that Fitch calls in to lead the river mouth assault fails as miserably as Diaz’s helicopter attack did, establishing for a second time how fucking dumb the idea of blind gunfire into a river in the hopes of hitting fish truly is. With nothing left to stop them, the piranhas not only successfully migrate into the ocean, but they also manage to destroy the fucking battleship along the way.

Staring multiple failures in the face at this point, Fitch and the team manage to escape in a helicopter to regroup with the Secretary of State at a floating fortress where they discover that the US military has come up with a plan to – well who would have guessed it? – nuke the fuckers. But unlike Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus, in this movie they actually go through with it and to no one’s surprise, it doesn’t work. As a matter of fact, all it does is piss off the fish enough that they attack the nuclear submarine that fired upon them and cause it to fucking explode after less than a dozen bites. How? Don’t ask, because the answer would be the logical equivalent of a fart directly into your mouth. But just as the military masterminds come up with a new plan to hit the marine-based scourge with an even bigger nuclear attack, Fitch proposes a slightly different idea. Leading a team of commandos packing guns that couldn’t look any less realistic if they were Laser Cats, Fitch dives into the fucking ocean and tries unsuccessfully to take them out in hand-to-gills combat. So after taking a break from the deep sea battle just long enough to jump back up into a helicopter unknowingly piloted by Diaz and his henchmen only to kill them using a flare gun and a piranha-attracting remote, Fitch jumps back into the ocean and finally manages to turn the tide and defeat the horde. But of course by this time the piranhas have already attacked the Florida Keys, resulting in immeasurable destruction and countless shots of innocent civilians getting hilariously devoured.

The Case for Greatness (aka The Lowlights):

Donkey: Now that we know the basics, let’s cut to the chase and put these two titans of bullshit in their head-to-head match up of destiny. But first let me just go on record right now to say that no matter what happens, the real winner won’t be rational comprehension.

Star Power: Washed Up 80’s Pop Starlets? Check!

Her follow up to the smash hit Electric Youth might not catch on quite as well: Middle Aged Mediocrity.

Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus: When it comes to casting, this movie doesn’t fuck around, attacking with a three point combination strike of deadly mediocrity. The opening punch lands softly enough in the form of background players who leave us awash in a sea of familiar faces not seen since another true Asylum classic, Death Racers. But that’s just warming up for the throat jab to come, as the film’s true star power shines its blazing dullness when we discover that the lead role of Emma belongs to the indispensable Deborah Gibson. Yes, THE Deborah Gibson of Electric Youth fame. If your heart just fluttered upon hearing that news, chances are that you’re either a soccer mom or just about ready to snuggle up and watch Queer As Folk with your life-partner. Seeing as I’m neither, I couldn’t give much of a shit beyond being stunned that anyone actually bothered to cast her. And after being left reeling from that remarkable obscurity, the death strike comes soon after as the role of the shadowy government agent tasking Debbie with saving the world is performed by the über-douche, Lorenzo Lamas. If you don’t know much about this bowl of cocksnot, I recommend looking up him and his laser pointer antics on the mercifully short-lived reality show Are You Hot?, where he and his in-no-way-ridiculous looking ponytail had the audacity to serve as a judge whose sole purpose was to break down and criticize people on their physical appearance. Granted that while anyone who appeared on the show was likely narcissistic enough to deserve it, this shining example of truly noteworthy idiocy has nevertheless earned him a permanent place in the Despicable Douche Hall of Premature Ejaculation and Mustard-Stained Tank Top Fame. Seriously, the fact that he didn’t end every one of his critiques with, “…but what the fuck do I know? I’m Lorenzo-goddamn-Lamas! My opinion is only worth its weight in drunken broom handle sodomy!” is astounding to me.

Somewhere in this distance you can hear, "What you gotta do is you gotta make the battleship go faster! Take corners tighter!"

Mega Piranha: No slouch in its own right, the spiritual sequel puts up some tough competition in this category. You want Asylum alumni? Well, no one really does, but regardless it’s got an all-time favorite in Johnny Johnny Johnny from Street Racer, who makes an all-too-short appearance as the captain of the US battleship that fails to stop the piranhas only to be ultimately destroyed in the river attack. You want mildly inappropriate but exceptionally obscure actors with questionable audience appeal? See how you like the busboy from the classic episode of Seinfeld filling in as Colonel Diaz, or the timeless Greg Brady himself, Barry Williams, playing the Secretary of State for a whole 7 minutes of screen time. But the true genius comes when the movie matches Debbie Gibson’s obscure 80’s starlet power with another teenage sensation who was equally brief in relevance; Tiffany of I Think We’re Alone Now fame. I’d be proud to say that I knew very little about her, but alas Weird Al’s cover of her biggest hit made sure that she was at least on my radar enough as a child to know that she apparently spent her own childhood performing in malls, making her something that even now I would go as far out of my way to avoid as an Abercrombie & Fitch.

In a surprisingly blunt moment of honestly, Tiffany explains just how far "up to here" America had it with her by 1988.

Winner: Mega Piranha. While Lorenzo Lamas makes a strong case, attempting to douche his way to a victory for his cast, this battle was never that close. Johnny Johnny Johnny is a force that’s matched by few among the Asylum regulars. And while Debbie Gibson’s acting can only be described as “pretty bad”, that’s actually a step up from her music (I’ve never actually heard the sound of an asthmatic goat bleating for its life while being fed into a wood chipper, but I’m still pretty sure I’d rather listen to that). Tiffany, on the other hand, delivers a truly stunning performance that couldn’t have seemed more uncomfortable and unsettling if she were reading her lines off a ransom note telling her that her children being held by the local chapter of NAMBLA.

Love Scenes: Unmotivated And Mildly Creepy? Check!

Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus: After the three Heroes of Science and Might are enlisted by the US Army to stop the titular beasts, the team jumps into action via a random montage of clearly unrelated beaker-based “research” which I’m pretty sure is nothing more than my first year university chemistry lab on titration. But while this is obviously not at all helping the problem at hand, it turns out that it is serving a far more insidious purpose: love. For some reason all this pointless busywork on needless experiments gets Debbie Gibson and Shimada, the Japanese scientist, into the mood for some sweaty junk fondling in a nearby broom closet. The kind of discomfort that is shared between both the actors performing this and we the audience while try to watch it is usually reserved for finding your grandma’s “personal massaging device” and slowly realizing why it was in a drawer that reeks of AstroGlide, Rub-A535 cream, and ribbon candy. Seriously, the only way it could be more fucked up is if Debbie’s elderly father was there coaching Shimada along on his quest to find her G-spot.

You know what else drips like this, science boy? Let's just say your doctor will tell you in a few days. Now shut up and kiss me!

Mega Piranha: This movie takes a far different approach from its predecessor, delivering attempts at romance that are even more half-hearted than my attempts to watch them, most of which are limited to Tiffany sharing a few awkward moments and long stares with Fitch in the last 15 minutes of the movie with no conceivable tension up to that point which would justify it. But what it lacks in heart, it attempts to make up for in unmotivated titty shots at the start of the film, just before those titties are promptly plucked off of a boat and devoured by fish.

At least this random hooker can meet her death with the satisfaction that the silicone is going to kill every fish that was dumb enough to eat her.

Winner: Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus. Watching topless chicks get devoured is something no one can be ready for, but barring an unruly outbreak of lip fungus mashing into a terminal case of gingivitis, it takes a lot for me to see two people start making out and utter the phrase, “ewwwwww” aloud. Nice work, Debbie.

Special Effects: Worthy Of Special Ed? Check!

This film actually deserves a lot of credit for creating CG generated piranhas that somehow manage to look like rubber.

Truly equal in every way, both movies thrill us with signature scenes developed by Tiny Juggernaut, the special effects wizard(s) behind The Asylum’s long-standing legacy of visual splendor, if splendor happens to be a synonym for eyeball rape. Beyond countless little things, both movies wield the best CG that a fistful of “30 cents off Shake N’ Bake” coupons can buy, creating titular animals that look and move like they’re being controlled by a puppet master fighting the onset of psoriatic arthritis with mind-altering hallucinogens, and an endless parade of explosions that you couldn’t look any dumber if they were caused by lighting a fart on fire. And the real icing on the cake is not just that the very expected Asylum policy of allowing the same shots to be used over and over again in each movie is in place. No, it’s that there are a few shots that are used over and over again in both movies. This is the kind of recycling that even Ed Bagley Jr would give you the finger for.

Winner: Ironic comedy. Seriously, that’s about all. Everyone else loses.

Animal Attacks: Hilariously Unmotivated Or Flat-Out Insane? Check!

Like so many boogie boarders can tell you, this bridge's mistake was managing to somehow look like a sea turtle.

Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus: When your movie is so goddamn about the epic battle between two non-existent titans that you can’t be bothered to think of a title that doesn’t sound like it was made up on a dare, you know that your movie is going to involve a lot of crazy shit. But while the battle between the enemy combatants is exceptionally pedestrian at best, it’s their attacks on the human populace that truly make the movie. They trade scenes of modest hilarity when Giant Octopus rises out of the ocean to take down an entire oil rig, Mega Shark leaps out of the San Francisco bay to take a massive bit out of the Golden Gate Bridge, and Giant Octopus swats a low-flying fighter jet out of the air with a single swipe of its tentacle. But the modest chuckles these exploits deliver pale in comparison to the movie’s single greatest moment of epic hilarity. Allow me to paint the scene:

High in the clouds somewhere over the deep blue of the ocean, we catch up with a commercial passenger jet as a stewardess walks down its aisle asking for people to remain in their seats. As she draws closer to a young couple, the dude stands up just in time to be jostled by a pocket of turbulence, forcing the flight attendant repeats herself for the 90th time and insist that he sit back down. Somewhat shaken and apparently a 5th degree moron, the kid’s retort is to slowly return to his seat while blurting out that he and his girlfriend are “getting married in two days,” like that statement should somehow magically enable the stewardess to mentally manipulate air streams and smooth out the ride just for him. But as he settles back into his seat, the kid suddenly lurches forward towards the camera and cries, “HOLY SHIT!” Equally startled to attention, we watch as the camera turns to show what the kid sees at that very moment, but just like him, we can’t possibly believe it: the fucking Mega Shark has jumped out of the ocean only to take down the fucking jet with a single chomp of its jaws. That’s right, the fucking shark jumped high enough out of the ocean to take out a passenger jet, which could only be equaled by how far the Dr Pepper shot out of my nose upon witnessing this spectacle.

Sit back and shut up, Frank. No one wants to hear your "there's something on the wing" Shatner impersonation.

Gotta get to that shoe sale!

Mega Piranha: Lesser in scope but not in epic hilarity, this film makes up for its singular source of menacing doom with the sheer volume of stupidity that it invokes. Like our good friend Mega Shark, the killer fish manage to destroy large-scale war vessels, causing battleships to sink and nuclear submarines to explode all through the power of biting. Yes, biting. But it doesn’t stop there. Next the expanding piranhas set their sites on whole cities, attacking Venezuela and then eventually the Florida Keys with the brilliant strategy of leaping out of the water and crashing into random buildings, which somehow causes massive explosions that seem to suggest that the entire infrastructure of these towns was based on gasoline and fireworks depots. And why the fuck any species of fish would be motivated to jump to their own deaths just for shits and giggles, I’ll never know. Of course once the hoard begins its march towards idiocy, the human death toll begins to mount and there are countless shots of people being hilariously crushed or swallowed whole. But like Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus, this movie also has one particular assault that stands out above all the others.

As the killer piranhas carry out their first attack on the Venezuelan city, Fitch runs down to the river to investigate when he notices a random girl dying on the beach. But as he goes to comfort her (read: feel her boob) while she slips into the comfort of oblivion, Fitch becomes the next target of the fishes’ random attack. A piranha jumps out of the nearby river, knocking Fitch to his back as he parries it away. And in that moment of vulnerability as Fitch lies prone, the floodgates open, allowing the movie to truly shatter the notion of awesome itself. Hoping for a mouthful of douche-sandwich, a steady stream of piranha flies out of the river with their sights set directly on our hero. So with no time to get to his feet, Fitch fights off the assault of nearly a dozen flying fish, one immediately after another, by kicking them away in a steady stream of bicycle kicks. Yes, bicycle kicks. Think Liu Kang from Mortal Kombat without the sweet chicken sound or career potential. And the imagery of this conceptually retarded moment is only enhanced by how indescribably poorly it’s executed. Fitch looks like he’s pretending to ride an invisible exercise bike more than actually kicking, and the piranhas being kicked away aren’t actually lined up properly with his kicks.

Damn it. Now my boots are going to smell like fish taint.

Winner: Mega Piranha. A shark jumping high enough to take down a jumbo jet is the very definition of rad and easily makes the movie worthwhile, but there simply aren’t enough of these attacks peppered throughout Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus. On the other hand, Mega Piranha is brimming with idiocy, which Fitch’s foot-work caps off unspeakably well.

Character Development: Heroes Of Mind And Colon Bending Might? Check!

Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus: Not in this case, actually. The main characters in this movie couldn’t be much less interesting if they were solving the movie’s crisis while putting on an insurance seminar, stopping only long enough to recite whole pages of the dictionary.

BBOOOORRRRIIINNNNGGGG!!!!!!!!!!

Stealth tactics this terrible are usually reserved for delivering delicious hash browns to unsuspecting victims in Sneak King.

Mega Piranha: On the other hand, one of the true gems of this movie is the main character and professional turd wrangler, Jason Fitch. I have no idea who this actor is and suspect I never will (mostly from not caring enough to find out), but the only way this Jason Bourne wannabe could have been matched was if the Matt Damon puppet from Team America: World Police played the part while screaming that one famous line, “MATT DAMON!” Seriously, this guy’s exploits are the stuff of legend. But how badass is he, you ask? Well how does being stealthy as a fucking ninja strike you? When he first arrives in Venezuela to begin his investigation, the Colonel insists that he stay at the base as an honored guest whose honor it is to be locked under watching eyes. But undeterred in his quest for answers, Fitch merely breaks out of the colonel’s military compound by employing camouflage techniques not seen since a toddler covered his eyes and declared “you can’t see me”, allowing him to go unnoticed by guards while he clings to a fence a mere 3 feet above them in plain sight.

The movie actually would have made just as much sense if the dialogue for the last 30 minutes had been "mmmpphhh mpphh mmphh mmmppphhh!"

Still not impressed? How about the ability to bend physics to your mere whim sound, Jack? Apparently our hero’s complete lack of charisma and screen presence is a result of being traded away for immeasurable power over the very laws of the universe. We first witness this splendor when he’s escaping from Venezuela with Sarah’s team onboard a helicopter with a severed fuel line. A normal man would panic once he realized that he was mere seconds away from an inevitable crash into the ocean, but Fitch instead insists they MacGyver that shit in a way simply unheard of by man, prompting Sarah’s team to hook up an oxygen tank that not only fuels them but somehow gives the helicopter a fucking nitro boost. Impressed yet? Well that’s not all. The second farting in the face of the impossible comes later in the film when Fitch is leading the underwater assault against the giant piranhas. Throughout the duration of the entire battle, Fitch is communicating with his team and the army back at headquarters by talking in a regular speaking voice over his radio connection. That sounds pretty easy, right? The problem is that a fucking breathing apparatus is stuffed into his mouth the entire time, which would make this feat as impressive as singing your way through The Phantom Of The Opera while carrying a batch of newborn kittens in your pie hole.

Winner: Mega Piranha. Hmmm…a man who boot-fucks a school of fish while looking like he’s Sweating To The Oldies, or three lab rats whose greatest accomplishment is to successfully give a prehistoric fish a boner? Tough choice.

The Movie’s Ending:Blatantly Illogical? Check!

So epic that you can barely see what's going on.

Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus: At the very least, the ending of this movie is somewhere in the same ballpark as making sense. Sure it’s busy rubbing out a batch of baby-sauce in right field instead of paying attention to the game, but at least it’s close. The punch line ends up being that after repeated failed attempts to destroy the two giants using conventional weapons that should have by all rights torn them to pieces, Debbie Gibson and her crew come up with the brilliant idea of luring the two combatants to the same location in hopes that they will fight each other to the death, eliminating both problems in one fell swoop. So that, go figure, is exactly what happens. After the same scene of Giant Octopus wrapping its tentacles around Mega Shark only to have one of them bitten off is played multiple times, as once again The Asylum blatantly pads its movie while assuming that the audience won’t notice that we’re stuck in a shitty Groundhog Day-esque loop, the two creatures finally sink into the blackness of their watery grave. The only major flaw with this little pearl of storytelling is that if we are to suppose that their hatred for one another was so strong that they are compelled to fight one another to the death upon seeing one another, then why didn’t the ancient enemies do exactly that at the beginning of the movie when they were freed from their ice tombs while quite literally facing one another in mid-battle? Get back to me on that while I’m busy not giving a shit.

So epic that being able to see what's going on actually makes the ending MORE confusing.

Mega Piranha: By contrast, this movie’s ending is a glorious monument to making no sense whatsoever. After taking a break from his underwater battle to dispose of Diaz in his helicopter, Fitch rejoins the fight just in time to go head to head with the same giant piranha that has just finished plucking Diaz’s helicopter out of the air. And with the helicopter still in its jaws, that fish follows Fitch into a coral patch where it gets stuck, leaving it open to attack. Using his last functioning brain cell, Fitch turns and fires, hitting what I assume is the helicopter’s fuel tank which in turn causes an underwater explosion that takes the piranhas entire face off. Now, I know what you’re thinking: didn’t I explain earlier that the piranhas were attacking whole cities by jumping out of the water and landing on buildings, meaning that there are actually lots of these huge fish? You bet. So what should the death of one of them result in? That’s right; absolutely nothing. And yet, this one fish bleeding in the water causes all the others to come and cannibalize it. Seems odd, but why not? The problem is, once all the fish start feeding….that’s it. The conflict is declared over. The problem is apparently solved and it took us a few minutes to figure out what the fuck had just happened. Somehow this movie is suggesting that just because the fish decided to eat one of their own, that somehow stopped every single one of them, even though this is the same hoard of fish that had stopped to feed on one of its own earlier in the movie. This isn’t even trying to make any goddamn sense and is quite possibly one of the laziest fucking endings in cinematic history. It honestly could have cut from the underwater fight directly to a shot of Abraham Lincoln giving a pepperoni pizza a high five then back to Fitch laughing and playing Marco Polo with the piranhas and it wouldn’t be any less intelligible.

Winner: Mega Piranha. This one’s not even close. The ending of Mega Piranha is one of the most spectacular failures The Asylum has produced to date, and as we all know by now, that’s saying something. Something that smells like taint.

The Verdict:

Donkey: The results speak for themselves. Even by its own rights, Mega Piranha is probably the greatest modern Asylum movie that we’ve seen in quite some time, hearkening back to the glory days of Universal Soldiers and Alien Vs Hunter. I give it four and a half bicycle kicks out of five horribly devoured civilians. But given its competition, it looks even better as Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus, on the other hand is an exceptionally average entry into our catalog that once again proves that hype rarely lives up to its own billing. The single outstanding moment of the shark taking down the airplane is worth the awkward romance and remarkable lack of further redeemable scenes, but not by much. Trust me when I say that the glory is all in the name. There’s little else past that. I give this turd a very charitable three washed up starlets out of five hilarious airline accidents. Stick with the pseudo-sequel if you want some real laughs.

What We Learned:

Donkey: Ending a movie properly is overrated. Hell, it downright unnecessary. And that’s the kind of indisputable fact that can be translated to everything else in life, like writing. That’s why I have weighed the options and decided…

Don’t forget to check back every Sunday for a new fresh review! Next week shittymovienight.com presents: Our greatest single review to date as we tackle more movies at once than man was meant to ponder in….THE COMIC BOOK CARTOON MOVIE PARADE OF PAIN.

Back To The Main Page.

This is one of the few movie where that banner truly fits. It was uncut because no one bothered to edit it. It was uncensored because no one would have the balls to submit this to a regulatory body. It's unbelievable...well, you'll soon come to understand that part.

Donkey: It goes without saying that talent is a rare thing, but I don’t think most people realize how rare true talent actually is. Most people can only find one thing in life that they’re fairly good at, with the exception of those very few lucky fuckers who are good at everything they do, but they pretty much make us all sick. Since you’re reading this, you’d probably assume that I consider my talent to be writing. Not so. I actually don’t fancy myself to be terribly good at this, but simply feel the need to share the horrors that we’ve seen. No, my true calling lies in clam shucking. Seriously, if you need a bucket of clams shucked the fuck up, you give me a call. But that leads us to another important aspect of talent. While it’s granted that everyone has that one thing that they excel at, the problem is that for most people it’s something that will never earn them a paycheck, let alone a disgustingly inflated paycheck. So when someone’s lucky enough to win the lottery of life and get paid a fact stack of cash to do what they’re good at, it’s naturally quite frustrating for the rest of us when they have the audacity to try to branch out and kick ass in a second field. This could be why there are so few musicians who try their hand at acting and receive any shred of respect. While there a few that manage to pull it off, most are met with the ridicule rightfully deserved when they prove that they barely had one talent in the first place. That brings us to this week’s feature film.

When we were looking through the list of Asylum movies on their website and found a film starring the Insane Clown Posse, it became an immediate must-have for us. After all, ICP is already a shitty band, so the thought of those idiots trying to act promised immeasurable hilarity. Once again, the Asylum didn’t disappoint.

The Plot:

Donkey: If you’ve read any of our previous reviews of Asylum movies, then you know that being a blatant rip-off of an existing Hollywood blockbuster does not necessarily mean that their movie is actually bound in any way to be even remotely fucking related to the source material. If you need an example, feel free to look back at our review of Universal Soldiers, a heartwarming Asylum knock off of Universal Soldier that takes the majesty of JCVD and Dolph Lundgren battling both acid flashbacks on one another to settle a dispute that began in Vietnam and replaces it with a dozen unremarkable douchebags running around in the woods in the hopes of accomplishing little more than shouting one another into oblivion before a giant Cyberdyne Systems Model 101 rises up to destroy them all.

But that being said, every once in a while the Asylum manages to surprise you and actually land extremely close to the mark. Such is the case with Death Racers, which is a cinematic orgasm based on – hold on to your hats – Death Race. Now, I know what you’re saying to yourself right now and I agree: I too was hoping that while named after Death Race, the movie would actually be a rip off of Funny Farm, but alas such is not the case. In both movies, the story is set in the year 20-who-gives-a-shit, telling the tale of convicted felons competing in a hybrid street race/demolition derby for the chance to win their freedom. The differences in this case being that the racers are actually being used to assassinate a criminal leader harboring a shitty plan that might accomplish something evil that would be even remotely terrifying if we could figure out how it works, and the entirely respectable Jason Statham has been replaced by a duo of shockingly untalented white rappers that I can’t figure out why the hell I recognize.

The Case for Greatness (aka The Lowlights):

Exhibit A: Don’t Fear The Reaper…He’s Just A Pudgy, Terrible Actor In A Vest

Donkey: This week’s festival of pain climbs aboard a rocket sled of stunted imagination and barrels us forward into the future, stopping first a distant three years from now. As stock footage of fires and random destruction flashes across the screen, a narrator describes a revolution started by “the disillusioned masses” which causes liberty to vanish. If you’re wondering what exactly the masses are so disillusioned about, take heart that while the film doesn’t say, we can just go ahead and assume that it’s a nationwide panic triggered when Nerds candy is taken off the market. Flash forward next to the year 2033, where the President of the United States declares Marshall Law, opening a massive penal colony called the Red Zone which becomes the home of over a million insane and horrifically violent felons. And now that we’ve set up an unmotivated uprising that resulted in an inexplicably over populated sleep-away camp for axe murderers, we’re ready to jump in with both feet.

Nuclear explosion be damned, I've got to finish synthesizing a new strain of Cream Soda.

Once that useless narration comes to an end, the prologue continues with an introduction to the source of conflict which is to become the basis of the movie. And since it’s the basis of an Asylum film, it’s quite appropriate that it makes little to no sense. It begins with the Red Zone’s resident scientist playing with a beaker in front of an image of a nuke going off, likely symbolizing his research into a homemade cure for the extreme burning sensation that he experiences when he pees. But before he can administer his Kool-Aid based cure, he’s interrupted by the overlord of the Red Zone, a man in a shitty vest and toque combo named the Reaper. As the Reaper begins to give the doctor shit for his lack of progress on preparing the top secret sarin gas for his upcoming planned attack, neither of them notice that they are being filmed by a young dude who has snuck into the lab. Of course, it’s understandable that they don’t see him, considering that he’s hiding a whopping two feet away from them. As the Reaper gives the doctor a deadline of two weeks to complete his work, he steps on a mouse to show how serious he is. Fuck, there goes to most likable character in the movie. Rest in peace, Mr Cheesypants McSqueakington. Of course, it would be a lot more upsetting if it didn’t cut from the shot of a mouse pinned under the Reaper’s boot directly to a shot of him stepping down into what is clearly a puddle of strawberry jam. Flinching in the face of this act of condiment-based brutality, the kid knocks into shit causing the Reaper to turn his head ever so slightly and finally notice him. As the kid bolts out the door, the Reaper tells a third man in the room to “find and kill the kid with the camera”. The random dude goes to carry out the order and at this point we discover that despite looking completely unremarkable in any way, this random dude is apparently some kind of android as indescribably shitty robot sounds are dubbed over his every move. With the chase now on, the kid runs out in the hallway outside the lab, gives the camera to some random dude in a hazmat suit standing there, and ducks under a nearby table. The android appears seconds later, walks up to the random bastard holding the camera, and without so much as a word, punches his fist straight through this his exceptionally confused chest. Besides the obvious criticism of how fucking terrible the shot of the first punching through the chest looks, I’m quite startled that you’d bother to build an android if it was so stupid that it actually fell for that. As the doctor and the Reaper come out to see what happened, the robot hands them the camera. The doctor takes a quick look and notices that it has Wi-Fi, concluding that the stream of images must have already been transmitted, so everyone will know their plan by now. The Reaper says that’s okay, that just means that the doctor now has four days to complete his work, or as the unnecessarily slowed-down repetition shot that follows it directly says, “fffffooooouuuurrrr ddaaaayyyysss”.

Robotic chiropractors: a bad idea.

Now that our introduction into this world is complete, it’s time to roll the opening credits while two stars of the movie, both members of the band Insane Clown Posse, drop their latest failed attempt at a hit single. And I’d like to take a moment to note how much I admire these assholes. It takes an immeasurable amount of maturity and poetic brilliance to drop a track with a title like Fuck The World (Fuck Them All). I can only hope that the closing credits of the movie play their equally brilliant follow-up, My Mom Made Me Clean My Room (I Hate That Bitch).

Rock on, random maps!

The meat of the film begins in an office where our favorite Burgess Meredith impersonator, also known as the coach in Street Racer who introduced us to the genius of go-kart practicing for street racing, is playing Reagan Black, the Governor of California. He’s surrounded by three other people, one of whom may or may not be the President of the United States. They hint at it but don’t say for sure, and really, it makes little difference. After looking at a series of blueprints and diagrams of the Red Zone which look more like schematics for Snoopy Snowcone Machine, they have a fucking ridiculous conversation so poorly delivered that it makes the already terrible script impossible to keep up with. As far as I can tell, they’re either talking about their favorite Rush album or else something about the criminals having access to the water supply and sarin gas, but I can’t tell which is the case. All I know is that my favorite part of the whole improved mess is the Governor saying, “Godddamn Red Zone – dumping a shitload of cock tit criminals in the middle of a walled-off city in the middle of my state – when was that ever in a million rimjob years thought to be a good idea, huh?” Exactly, sir. Thank you for commenting on how fucking stupid the entire premise for the movie is right off the bat. Not many movies have the courage to come right out and declare how retarded they are. But anyways, at the end of this verbal diarrhea the Governor proposes that the only way that they can infiltrate the Red Zone and stop the Reaper is by holding something called a Savage Run, even though one of his cronies points out that they’re illegal. But the Governor says that it won’t be a Savage Run. No, instead they’ll change the name to a Death Race, the objective of which will be to kill the Reaper. I have news for you, Poncho: that’s not fooling anyone. They may have changed the name of the show from A Night Of Synchronized Ball Cradling to Dancing With The Stars, but I’m still quite aware that it’s an extravaganza of fruity dancing.

Exhibit B: Stereotypes Are Hilarious

Apparently a Death Race is easier to set up than a drooling match at an old folks’ home, as not seconds after the Governor is rubbing himself off over his own genius, we jump immediately into the prime-time network premier of the Death Race, or as the announcer screams repeatedly, “DEATH RACE!!!”, where it recaps the entire history of the Red Zone for no reason before introducing us to the teams that will serve as contestants:

WE LOVE TACOS!

SHG (or the Severed Head Gang): The first team is a not-quite-Hispanic duo who belongs to the nation’s biggest gang, introduced while doing about five minutes of their best ethnic gangster posing and random shouting. This team features another actor from Street Racer, who played Mickey Styles, the evil nemesis who had inexplicable fetish for calling the main character, Johnny, by name with inappropriate frequency. And much like Champagne Rifle Man, he’s therefore earned a special spot in our hearts, forever known to us as Johnny Johnny Johnny Johnny. But to save space and my fingers from all that typing, we’ll just call him the J-Quad. After introducing the team, the movie then introduces us to the sweet ride that they’ll be piloting through the race; a Lincoln Towncar with a goddamn fake severed head on the hood.

Don't ask don't tell my ass. There's gay, and then there's ARMY GAY.

Homeland Security: This team consists of two ex-army dudes in camouflage fatigues driving a Jeep with a shitty homemade rocket launcher mounted on it, as well as two massive M-19 guns on either side of the hood. With absolutely nothing else remarkable about them, these two are so generic that they might as well have been painted green and named “Army Men”. Seriously, I have house plants with more personality than these assholes. They’re exactly like those assholes you see staring at themselves in a mirror at the gym while blasting their triceps. Later on in the movie it will later be revealed that there are narcs in the group of contestants and holy shit, I wonder who that would be?

That's what real lesbians look like, right? Right?

Vaginamyte: The token female team that serves only to give any preteens viewers an uncomfortable stiffness in the pants, it consists of two girls named Queen B and Double D-struction. They are two pseudo-lesbian cannibals who lure men into their web, fuck them, and then devour them. Wow. What fucking ten year old wrote this bullshit? And to make it even more insulting, they’re driving a fucking Lotus. That makes sense, because if I were about to pilot my way through a battle with hordes of criminally insane convicts, I’d choose a goddamn expensive and fragile sports car. But don’t worry because they too have a shitty fake rocket launcher that looks like it was made out of polyethylene piping and duct tape on its roof. The male news anchor describes the cars as being able to go from “zero to suck my dick in 4.1 seconds”. Holy shit. How do you top that kind of maturity? Easily, actually, with our last team…

The skinny one is planning exactly how he's going to beat his girlfriend when he gets home, while the fat one begs for a treat. Who hired these assholes?

Insane Clown Posse: These two shitty rappers in real life play themselves, of course, despite the fact that it makes no goddamn sense. If this is supposed to be 2033 and they’re a garbage band from the late 90′s, that would make them over fifty years old at this point. And while Chubs McGee and the Emaciated Pole Smoker (I couldn’t be bothered to learn their actual names) look like they’ve been beaten with the ugly stick for about half a century, clearly neither of them are that old. Regardless, the movie explains that they still have a strong fan base despite their music being illegal for 13 years. First of all ICP has NEVER had a strong fan base. And secondly, I don’t care how terrible the dystopian future you have dreamed up is supposed to be…if ICP becomes illegal, count me in. But anyways, the movie continues by saying that these two assclowns were “scapegoated” for a series of massacres inspired by their “hardcore” music before comparing them to Hitler. Actually, that’s pretty believable. I can tell you right now that if I were forced to listen to an entire ICP album, somebody would have to pay. Their introduction comes to an end as we see that for this competition, ICP will be driving an ice cream truck with a fucking meat grinder on the front. Yes, a meat grinder. I guess a food processor would be just a little too stupid.

After the Reaper watches the premier of this nationally telecast bounty on his head, he declares that he needs the Doctor to finish his work today. Then the movie switches straight back to our group of contestants where after amazing us by not even being able to make squabbling with each other sound natural, they gather around a TV rolled out on a cart that displays a live feed to the Governor himself. He recaps their mission, laying out the arbitrary and completely irrelevant point system that comprises their game: 10 points for each random thug, 200 points for killing the Reaper, and 400 points for bringing him in alive. I’m not really sure what the point of bringing him in alive would be though, since he’s already in a fucking penal colony. What are you going to do? Throw him back in jail? The Governor also explains that freedom for each team requires a score of 1,000 points. When J-Quad’s partner asks what happens if they decide to just drive away, the Governor uses a remote control to set off a bomb strapped to his neck, exploding his head. I’d tell you this special effect is so terrible that it looks like an explosion of Alphaghetti, but I think that goes without saying by now. After this unnecessarily brutal show of force, the Governor warns that they have until sunset to bring back the Reaper.

Please God, someone make ICP stop rapping....NOOO!!!

Now that their objective is clear, not to mention idiotic, the teams jump in their vehicles and prepare to officially begin the race. But before they do, they hit us with some more random fucking exposition that just continues to pile on the stereotypical laziness. The two chicks are suddenly brandishing a vibrator for no reason while the J-Quad flirts very badly with them, throwing out every goddamn Latino slang term that he can think of. The other two teams say something as well, but you can’t hear them above the sound of their engines revving, which is probably for the best since it would have undoubtedly added nothing to the scene anyways, but is still laughable nonetheless. Good God, I love you, Asylum. And while this is going on, we turn back to the Red Zone just long enough for the Reaper to kill a random lab tech while complaining that the sarin gas levels in the water are too low before he’s informed that the race is about to begin. The best part of this shining moment of brilliance would have to be seeing the Reaper clearly spouting out dialogue for which there is no audio whatsoever, hereby proving my theory that this movie was edited using an old VCR spliced together with a Speak-And-Spell. But before leaving our pudgy villain again, he orders an army of disposable punks to meet the contestants, obviously hoping to clog his attackers’ engines with their internal organs.

Exhibit C: Ladies And Gentlemen, Start Your Severe Rectal Bleeding

DEATH RACE!!! With the official start of the race at hand, once again the newscast begins with that goddamn scream that we’ll hear all too often before they review the vehicles and plot of the race, because we really need to hear all that again. Finally after a rather underwhelming countdown, the party is finally underway and the vehicles tear off. Well, the films speed is increased to make it look like they’re tearing off, but then inexplicably slows back down to normal speed, clearly showing that they might as well be driving through a school zone. As they meet up with the horde of people waiting to engage in battle, and keep in mind that when I say a “horde” in an Asylum film, I mean the dozen or so family members of the cast that are filmed from different angles to make them look more numerous. As the teams begin to unload their cannons while swerving around slowly, they begin to run over those that they don’t shoot. And by run over, I mean they drive up to someone then cut to an extreme close up shot of the car running over a fake body parts. But to really distinguish our teams from one another, they each apply their own brand of stupidity to the scene. J-Quad shoots a single rocket at a dude kneeling in the road about ten feet in front of him, destroying him in an explosion so small that it there’s no way a rocket could possibly produce it. A punctured aerosol can, maybe, but not a rocket. Not to be outdone, the girls back up into a dude at the same speed that most of us would back out of a parking spot, hitting him to the ground where his head splits in half cleanly down the middle, which just makes no goddamn sense at all. And of course, ICP feeds a dude who falls to the ground into their meat grinder which results in only about four tablespoons of red corn syrup to fly out of a exhaust spout. And finally, the soldier boys get out and fight people by hand, which seems to defeat the purpose of vehicle-based combat entirely.

Well no wonder this guy's head split in half. He doesn't have an opening for his mouth or eyes.

With the insanity under way, we check back into the Red Zone where the doctor works feverishly, inserting liquid into a glass container using a turkey baster, which is pretty much exactly what he’s done the entire movie up to this point, because that’s pretty much all science is. As the Reaper saunters in again, they have the same argument old argument where he tells the doctor to go to full capacity and the doctor explains why that would be stupid. Goddamn. And speaking of things that just don’t get old…

That's right, Chuck, it looks like SHG's only chance to win at this point is to find the warp whistle that would take them straight to World 8-1!

DEATH RACE!!! The news broadcast kicks in again, giving us the point total for each team so far, like that means a goddamn thing to us or has any bearing whatsoever on the outcome of the movie (foreshadowing: it doesn’t). With yet another few minutes of film completely wasted for no other purpose than to pass the time, we journey back out to the Red Zone where all four teams stop together inexplicably, one can only guess to have a circle jerk. After more pointless and incredibly unnatural banter, they realize that it might be exceptionally stupid to just stand around doing nothing. One by one they jump back into their shitty cruisers and leave until only ICP remains, leaving them to take axes to a small gang that comes running out to do little more than pad ICP’s irrelevant score. But once they’re finished, a massive explosion goes off causing a mushroom cloud a short distance away. As ICP runs over to investigate, it turns out to be the Homeland Security team being killed, as their jeep has gone up in a massive fireball. So just to recap, hitting a dude with a rocket launcher creates an explosion about four feet in diameter, whereas blowing up a jeep results in a fucking mushroom cloud. So along with quality, logic, acting, editing, etc, the movie also manages to shit on the concept of proportion. As ICP stands and watches the jeep burn, the young kid from the beginning of the movie sneaks up to film them, once again from two feet away and this time out in the open. Naturally the two painted tragedies notice him eventually, so he explains that his name is FX and he’s been filming the Red Zone all his life. I’m not really sure why, but they take a shining to him and decide to bring him along.

It takes them a while to notice him since this is exactly what kind of media coverage they're used to.

Hold on, I need to update my Facebook status...

DEATH RACE!!! The news announces the death of Homeland Security before updating the scores again, which I guess means that there’s a whole lot more killing that they couldn’t be bothered to show us. While watching this news, the Governor is informed by his female underling that the Reaper has found a way into the water supply. She then gives a ton of details that make no fucking sense even if you really concentrated on listening, which no one in their right mind would. And after checking in with one group of idiots smashing together plans like a remedial class playing with Silly Putty, we turn to their mirrors in the Red Zone, where once again the Reaper argues with the doctor about his progress. Fuck, someone stop this. His goth hooker companion then enters the room and announces that their ambush is ready. Nevertheless, the Reaper is still getting impatient, so he takes over the doctor’s laptop and starts adjusting his iTunes playlist, which is supposed to be him increasing the gas or the pressure or some bullshit. To show how he’s pushing the system to dangerous limits, the film shows two shots of two different pipes rattling slightly. Now that’s intense!

DEATH RACE!!! Once again we turn back to the news anchors who update the fucking totals, despite having not seen anyone get killed since the last update. Goddamn. Meanwhile J-Quad, the girls, and ICP all meet again out in the field, since I guess none of them realize that this is a competition. At this point I think we can definitely conclude that calling this a race is about as accurate as calling it a corporate team-building retreat. Anyways, ICP lets the other two teams know that FX has warned them that they’re about to walk into a trap set by the Reaper. But fear not, as ICP says they’ve got a plan. Don’t hold your breath, though, as I’m pretty sure it involves telling the world how hardcore you are while playing Halo 3 in your mom’s basement.

Ouch...my dignity...

Ready to counter the certain doom that is waiting for them, the teams pull up to a warehouse which is apparently the site of the trap. I’m not really sure how the Reaper figured that they would pass through this particular warehouse, but that’s the least of the questions plaguing me at this point. The first group into action is J-Quad and the black haired member of Vaginamyte, Double D-struction. Why they’re teamed up, I have no idea. They pull up next to the warehouse, get out of their car, walk ten feet, and look around a corner to see three dudes standing with their backs turned, waiting to attack through a nearby door. What’s absolutely remarkable is the fact that they’re only standing about four feet away. How the fuck did those dudes not hear a car pull up with two noisy idiots talking as they get out of it? The pair goes back to J-Quad’s car and pulls random weapons from his trunk. Moments later, J-Quad then rushes around the corner and impales the three men on his…spear? Really? Who the fuck even has a spear, let alone in their trunk? Meanwhile, the other member of Vaginamyte, Queen B, and ICP sneak inside a different entrance of the warehouse. After ICP decapitates two dudes who, again, don’t notice someone walking up behind them, Queen B then distracts two other dudes by showing them her titties while ICP kills them from behind. And while this isn’t quite on par with another one of our Asylum favorites, Sad Titties from Snakes On A Train, the idea of this woman baring her tits for this movie just makes me want to cry. But with that, the trap is officially sprung, leaving the teams to congratulate one another for defeating an ambush that would have been perpetrated by a group of thugs that outnumbered them by an overwhelming TWO guys.

Thank God young Timmy was there, setting off his toy rocket or this could have been an epic bloodbath.

But while this is going on, our wee pal FX is waiting in ICP’s ice cream truck where he suddenly gets his ass killed by the goddamn android, which appears out of nowhere. But that’s not the end of the horror. After the three remaining teams once again begin some remarkably stilted bickering inside the warehouse, the android busts into the room and begins slapping them all around with the greatest of ease. But once watching these idiots getting tossed around quite poorly starts to get old, two masked dudes run into the scene and hit it with a fucking rocket launcher. But before you wonder if the explosion from this rocket launcher is either unfathomably small or the size of a nuclear blast, let me put your mind at ease by specifying that in this case, the rocket doesn’t explode at all. It just hits the android and knocks it over through the magic of obviously sped up film. But hey, at least that stupidity distracts you for a brief moment from the rather goddamn obvious mystery of who the masked duo happens to be. Once it recovers from this barely inconvenient attack, the android gets up and runs off for no imaginable reason. Apparently not only did someone program this thing to be fooled by handing an object to a complete stranger, but also to abandon its prey, no matter how easily it can be defeated, the moment that it’s knocked over. Not questioning their luck, the three teams wander back outside to find the tires of their respective vehicles slashed, as well as other invisible damage that they don’t have the budget to show. Undaunted and still in no rush, they take their cars into the warehouse and fix them, wasting both screen time and my time.

Pssttt...I just pooped a little.

DEATH RACE!!! Again we return to the television broadcast for no other reason than to get an update on the current scores. Fuck. I swear the two people playing the news anchors must have blown someone to get screen time, no matter how unnecessary it is. And with that mandatory waste of time complete, we turn to another, as we gaze in on the Reaper, who verbally molests his random goth hooker companion with dialogue we can’t fucking hear. As the sexual stumbling comes to an end, I’m pretty sure that while the Reaper has cum in his pants, I’ll never get an erection again. We finally get to the goddamn point of the scene seconds later when she recovers from his assault to let him know that the trap didn’t work. Wow. That was completely worth it.

Exhibit D: I’m Fully Trained In The Martial Arts…Of Love

And they laughed at J-Quad when we said that he planned to go straight to a gardening job right after the race.

At this point it becomes clear that the already incredibly shallow pool of ideas for this movie has gone completely dry, as things start to get really fucking bizarre. We catch up with J-Quad, cruising along on his own when he comes across a beat up shed with a single table out front and a spray painted sign that says “Bar”. Being a fan of prison wine, he naturally decides that it would be a great idea to stop and ask the one dude sitting there for whatever he’s got. But as fucking retarded as that sounds, it gets even better. He then turns his back for absolutely no reason while the dude gets up and pisses in a cup. He then turns around and takes the cup from the man, taking a big swig while the dude laughs at how fucking stupid he is. Angered by the hot, salty mouthful of karma that is so badly deserved, J-Quad starts laying a beatdown on the bartender before eventually pissing right on the dude’s face. And as he’s zipping up and walking away from they beaten and piss covered body, three more guys come around the corner and run at him. I thought that swigging piss couldn’t be topped, but just then J-Quad goes and gets a fucking scythe out of the trunk of his car and kills the three dudes with it. Yep, a scythe. So to recap, this dude decided that going into a vehicle based melee, it would be wise to carry a spear and a scythe with him. But while the J-Quad stands there over the fallen masses, quite satisfied with his idiocy, the bartender trundles up and hits him in the back of the head with a pipe wrench, knocking him out cold. He wakes up some time later, hanging by chains as the bar man prepares to kill him. But before he has the chance to meet his grisly and well deserved end, the mystery duo in black appears again, shooting the bartender in the back, freeing J-Quad, and running like hell. Why save someone as useless as J-Quad? I have no goddamn idea.

While he's picturing that time he made out with his cousin, she's throwing up in her mouth a little.

Not to be outdone in sheer stupidity, we leave our bandito pal and turn to ICP as they drive along only to run across something bizarre themselves. But instead of a shitty piss bar, they find two random chicks in mini-skirts and high heels. After the painted turds pull over and toss around promises that can only result in extreme sexual disappointment, these two chicks decide to climb aboard and guide them away. We catch up with them moments later as they all sit around in a random goddamn tent. The Emaciated Pole Smoker rubs an axe over one chick’s nipples while Chubs McGee brags about being a big boy all over, which she’ll find out “when she gets plowed in a minute”. For the record, listening to this fat bastard brag about his penis is every bit as sickening as you can imagine. This dude looks like he smells like pee. Just then another woman strides in, claiming to be the leader of the Whores of Babylon, an organization of loose chicks. She says something about their reputation as poets preceding their arrival in the Red Zone, pretending to seduce them before pulling out pruning sheers and threatening to take their balls. While I’m all for it, I’m not really sure what the point of this is. But that promise goes unanswered as ICP manages to turn the tables and kill the women instead, hacking at their bodies with a hatchet and a rather disturbing amount of sheer glee plastered across their faces. Seriously, these dudes have fucking issues.

As we check in with our last team, things go from bizarre to downright insanely hilarious. When Vaginamyte stops their car to have a casual and pointless argument amongst themselves, they get attacked by the android for a quick moment before it steals Queen B and takes off. In desperation, Double D-struction eventually turns to the one exceptionally useless man that she can find, demanding that J-Quad help in finding her missing partner. To secure his agreement, they inexplicably start making out against the side of a building. And while her partner wastes time sucking on a greasy taco, Queen B wakes up in a strange room lying face down and tied to a metal table. Moments later she is thrust into a hell previously thought unimaginable as the android, I’m shitting you negative, straps on a massive metal robo-cock and starts to rape her. Okay, that’s fucking insane. But fortunately for her, Double D-struction and J-Quad hear her screams of terror right away, as apparently they were making out directly against the outside of the very building that she’s being raped in. After the two of them burst into the room and free Queen B from her restraints, the three of them join together to beat the android to death. Considering he was slapping all five contestants around like it wasn’t even a chore a few minutes ago, it’s surprising that it was so easy to defeat him this time. But again, that’s the least of this scene’s problems.

If you've ever wondered if a scene in a film could give your toaster a boner, behold...

Having sat through that cavalcade of insanity, the movie eases off the accelerator for a moment and returns to some pointless monotony. After taking a moment to show us the doctor ordering an assistant to inform the Reaper that his gas-based attack is finally ready, we then turn back to the Governor and his three jackass companions as they stand around listening to a ham radio, once again talking about something so cryptically that it’s not worth the technical institute diploma required to stave off the brain aneurysm and pay attention.

Look, all I said was that Melissa Ethridge is overrated.

And speaking of pointless, the movie then returns to the contestants just in time to see J-Quad and the two women leaving scene of the funniest rape scene in the history of cinema. Queen B and J-Quad begin to fight over the attention of Double D-struction, and that fight quickly turns physical. After kicking the J-Quad straight in the balls, Queen B backs up into him with her car repeatedly. And if that wasn’t stupid enough, she then grabs the hood ornament off J-Quad’s car, ripping the fake head off of it and using the blade to stab him almost to death. But just as Double D-struction finally steps in to try to calm Queen B down, J-Quad pulls out a gun and shoots her in the back. They both die, leaving Double D-struction to wander if a pet dog would be a better companion and lover at this point than either men or women.

With only one full team actually remaining in the competition, ICP manages to finally arrive at the Reaper’s complex just as the sarin gas is about to be released. But before we can finally get to the conclusion of the film, it’s time once again for…

Sorry about that hatchet to the shoulder...Wait! Is that a spider?!

DEATH RACE!!! We return to our news coverage of the race, which reviews the death of J-Quad and Queen B and then, guess what, updates the goddamn scores. With that mandatory punch in the face delivered, we return to the Red Zone as ICP and Double D as they stumble upon one another in the Reaper’s complex. As the Insane Clown Pansies stalk through a hallway with their hatchets cocked and ready, Double D-struction turns a corner just in front of them only to get a hatchet to the collar bone. Chubs McGee asks the Emaciated Pole Smoker why the hell he did that, to which the EPS shrugs and replies that he didn’t mean to, that she walked into it. Chubs McGee shakes his head, declaring that he’ll go to hell for that one. Yeah, that bunch of chicks that you just butchered was cool, but killing this chick will get you a penthouse suite in Hades. But since the subject of Satan has come up, that gives the boys a rather irrelevant reason to start belting out one of their shitty songs about rubbing off the devil or something while they walk away.

As the movie takes a break, it returns to the Governor and his three idiots who have another incomprehensible conversation while examining satellite imagery of fucking NOTHING, all the while chuckling about their inside guys. Seriously, who could that be?! Before the answer comes, it’s time once again for…

DEATH RACE!!! We return to the news broadcast just for the anchor to sum up the situation as, “Two clowns against one insane man. Who will win?” And that’s it. That’s the entire scene.

Exhibit E: No Matter Who Crosses The Finish Line, We All Lose

We return to the Red Zone where the Reaper and the doctor begin to release the gas just as ICP comes rushing in. They kill the doctor with a ridiculously unlikely hatchet throw, but just to be sure that they got the job done, the Emaciated Pole Smoker takes a couple of minutes to hack at the doctor’s body while the Reaper stands a couple of feet away and does absolutely nothing. But just as we wonder if everyone will simply die of boredom, the mystery duo dressed in black appears again and finally reveals their true identity. Why it was Homeland Security, the only team of ex-government agents in the pack who just happened to arbitrarily go missing after a completely unmotivated mushroom cloud explosion! Who could have possibly predicted that?! They blow a hole in the roof causing it to collapse on the room’s occupants before rappelling down to admire their handiwork. After looking through the rubble for about 12 seconds, they leave the complex altogether just before ICP comes crawling out of the debris. Chubs McGee has an injured leg, so severely that it couldn’t possibly be fatal unless he rolled around in a vast of the flesh eating virus, so he sends the EPS to get revenge without him. I would suspect that it’s actually not the injury that’s keeping him behind, but rather the fact that he’s noticed a nearby box of Twinkies. But either way, as long as the scene ends, I’m happy. But say, do you know what we haven’t heard in a while?

Dear God, man, don't pull that out or you might spout a fountain of KFC gravy.

DEATH RACE!!! With the race officially declared over, the news anchors announce the sudden return of Homeland Security and declare them the winners. Moments later, they cut to live footage of the race’s finish line where the Governor giving a speech about their “coalition rebuilding the nation”, whatever the fuck that means, as the winning team arrives in the ICP ice cream truck. But while the jubilation goes on, we return to the Red Zone where Chubs McGee is still inching his way towards that box of Twinkies when the Reaper emerges to talk about the destruction that was to be. The tubby Ronald McDonald likes his plan until he realizes that his home city of Detroit would also be affected by the devastation, so the two men start grappling with less skill than two homeless men fighting over discarded pizza crusts. And while this is going on, the Emaciated Pole Smoker pops up back at the finish line and unloads an MK47 at the Governor, killing some of his men and proving…well, pretty much nothing. But as the Governor ducks behind his podium, he uses the implant in the ICP to blow up both Chubs McGee and the EPS’s explosive neck implants. But just before dying, they both yell, “Fuck the world”. I’m not really sure if it matters at this point, but the bomb in Chubs McGee’s neck not only detonates his significantly empty head, but it also sets off a massive explosion in the Red Zone. It serves no real purpose, other than to be one last ‘fuck you’ to all the resident convicts, but then useless pretty much describes the entire movie anyways.

At that point, the movie finally comes to an end. But wait…how about a remarkably shitty epilogue to blow one last fart directly in our faces. We see Double D-struction climbing a small hill, looking to be on death’s doorstep from the massive blood loss that she no doubt suffered from getting a fucking hatchet to the collar bone. But once she finally makes it to the top of the hill, she turns her back to us and walks about ten paces before spinning back around to strike a ridiculous pose for the camera. Good God. I think we were all just raped with that robo-cock.

The Verdict:

Donkey: Death Racers has everything you could possibly ask for, provided you were asking for someone to throw up on your face after impregnating your cat. Having famous musicians acting in your film is almost always a risky venture, but when it happens to be musicians that I need to punch myself in the balls repeatedly while chanting “Y2K” to even remotely remember, your pretty much just setting yourself up to fail. And if you’re going to feature their shitty excuse for hip hop music, why not apply that to the direction of the rest of the film. After all, who doesn’t like random shots arbitrarily sped up then slowed down, as well as repeated four or five times to prove no point at all? But then, I guess that does mask the fact that the script was actually written on a cocktail napkin and could be filmed in about 17 minutes. But my favorite part of the movie, by far, is their instance on screaming “DEATH RACE!!!” every three minutes, especially since it’s the clearest line of dialogue being yelled at Spinal Tap volume levels interspersed throughout standard Asylum movie mumbling. And in no way “DEATH RACE!!!” is it grating “DEATH RACE!!!” when this blaring distraction “DEATH RACE!!!” interrupts the movie over “DEATH RACE!!!” and over again. It’s my “DEATH RACE!!!” extreme pleasure to “DEATH RACE!!!” give this film five closeted man-boy clowns “DEATH RACE!!!” out of five “DEATH RACE!!!”

What We Learned:

Donkey: When you’re a not-quite-one hit wonder, it’s not just your cultural relevance but also time itself that stops for you until someone remembers who the hell you are decades later. Either that, or ICP are time-traveling harbingers of doom and unspoken man love.

Don’t forget to check back every Sunday for a new fresh review! Next week shittymovienight.com presents: a much needed week off before returning with one of the most infamous shitty movies of all time…TROLL II.

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