CATACOMBS

Hellooooooo,

This is Doctor Sarcofiguy of Northern Virginia; Channel 12's longest running horror show (well, it may not be the longest running, but it has run on in hours quite a goodly amount) THE SPOOKY MOVIE SHOW, bringing you, YES, another lovely review!  !

My review is for the catalepsy inducing movie CATACOMBS!  

2 and ½ Czars! 

Good night! 

Oh, you wanna hear more? I don’t want to tell you more, because to tell you about all the zany, cool special effects, I’d have to tell you where they were employed! And of how these effects are visited upon a group of youngster visiting one of those ‘fun’, haunted Halloween houses, so frighteningly, and terribly un-sponsored by the local JAYCEES of Kansas City, MO! Honey chiles, they are visiting a joint that has an open skull as an archway! DOOR, that is. 

What are the group of youngsters doing there? It’s a psych class experiment investigating fear and its resultant effects on a body. On a lot of bodies. DEAD BODIES, chiles! And they pile up nice and high, like the ample bosoms of Anna Nicole Smith! HahHAH! 

The movie builds on the premise of expediting characters you’d probably want to see dead in real life, pretty much like The Nightmare on Elm Street films, where they ruthlessly ‘file thirteened’ in various and sundry ways, those they considered as popular iconic, archetypal figures. I.E.: The pretty girl. The fallen woman. The popular guy. The nerd. The goth chick. The rocker dude. So FORTH, and SO ON!  

Here we have very much the same thing: the ‘fanboy nerd’, the ‘ugly’, or ‘fat girls’, the popular guy. The wanna-be popular- white guy- trying- too- hard-to- be-popular- by- being- too-ethnically- incongruous. And then there is the African American/Karate film stars. Oh, yes! We just don’t get enough of African American/Karate film stars anymore! Sure, there’s Wesley Snipe! But he’s not African American. He’s just BLACK! If ya cut him, he won’t bleed....he’d smoke!

There is so much blood and gore in this movie, I literally shrieked! You get the ‘subtly’ of the electric chair. That’s not a joke, there is an electric chair in the movie. I say it’s subtle for there’s much worse to come. You get to see some cool electrical arcs writhing sensuously across a poor fella. Spattering blood, and frying skin, honey. Just like cooking chicken! Then there’s the, oh AH, most disturbing, and gruesome Incubus rape scene I’ve ever seen in my life! There’s two Incubus rape scene, actually! I was disturbed by the first, because I actually liked the character being hapless put upon. However, I felt vindicated by the second ‘sexual intrusion’ because it was being enacted upon the “Wanna- be popular- white guy-trying- too- hard-to- be- popular- by-being- too-ethnically-i ncongruous.” 

The only problems I had with the production was the villain, and the music. 

The villain starts off in a Michael Myers mask that suffers from a bad hair life (maybe I’m just jealous, me being bald and all!). Then he turns into a demonic disciple/acolyte of some dread lord banished from the earth 1,000 years ago. My questions: Why bother wearing the mask while in your human form? We ain’t gonna know who the hell ya is no how?! And when ya turn into a demon: Sugar, we can’t help but to know whatcha is THEN! 

And as I say, the music bothered me some, too! Very John Carpenter. 

But the movie was edited wonderfully, and the mood was suitably moody. Very Blair Witch. The dialogue had me laughing too! Regard: 

“Guys, where are you?” said the girl with the flashlight. Alone and frightened in the dark. “This isn’t funny!” Ah, the slogan of all the dispossessed girls lost in the woods, and searching for their friends. 

And the line of my life: 

“Bad breath, skank ass mutherfuggah!” said the brother with the berry, berry bad hair, to the villain. “You goin’ down for that sh#@!” 

Ah, the poetry! 

There was so much hacking, and butchering, and vomiting of pieces happening on screen in front of me, that it made me feel sorry for whoever had to clean it up afterwards! Also from watching the film, I actually felt if the director had more money and more experience under his belt, he could potential put out some first rate ‘A’ feature stuff. CATACOMBS reminded me of Sam Raimi’s early efforts with the Evil Dead movies. I’m not kidding ya, I think this Todd Sheets kid has got talent! 

So, as I said in the beginning, I’m giving CATACOMBS, not Super Sugar Honey Combs, or Shawn “P- Diddy” Combs, or Jeffrey Combs, a fine horror film actor, uh, um.....sorry. It seems I AM just a little bit jealous of people who can actually use a comb..! 

CATACOMBS: 2 ½ CZARS out a possible 4, wholly un-beheaded Czars! 

Thassal!

- DOC SARCOFIGUY!

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