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Don't Panic
(1989)

Reviewed By Millionaire Waltz

Genre: Teenage Ouija Board Mishaps and Murders
Director: Rubén "Cemetery of Terror" Galindo Jr.
Writer: see "Director"
Featuring: Jon Michael "Summer Eagle" Bischof
Gabriela "Terror Vacation" Hassel
Jorge "The Vengeance of the Winged Serpent" Luke

Origin: Mexico

Review______________
This is one painful movie to watch. The dialog is awful, everyone looks silly (and I don't just mean their clothes), and the first half hour is mostly "romantic" scenes between Mike and Alex, if you can call watching a Romanian hand model love on a mass of bio-waste in the shape of a scrawny teenager "romantic".

Before we go any further though, let’s meet what’s being passed off as our cast: Michael - Our rather pathetic hero. Proof that you're never too old to be wearing dinosaur jamies and whine like a bitch. Falls to his death. Alexandra - Our jamie-clad hero's love interest. She has a very distracting unibrow. Tony - Mike's best friend. Apparently he was held back in school, like... twenty years. Stabbed and possesed by Virgil. Mrs. Smith - Mike's mother. She calls Mike "baby" a little too much (possibly hinting at a teenage-baby fetish). She drinks, but wouldn't you? Lt. Velazco - A totally 80s police leiutenant, mustache and all. Johnny - Typical 80s shotgun-weilding punk guy. Stabbed in the chin. Christy, Debbie and Robert - Mike's band of merry adventurers. Christy and Debbie are stabbed (noticing a theme?), while Robert has his throat slit. Fred - Mike's da-da. He looks much older than his wife (creepy...). Virgil - A demon who possess Tony. Obviously, they were trying to make him Freddy Krueger-ish and they succeeded, except in every significant way. Stabbed (again...) while crushed under some giant metal thing. And now, back to our movie.

Mike is a boring 80's guy who's just had a birthday party. However, some of his friends decide to stick around. They give him a Ouija board as a gift and then they proceed to play with it. Tony, a friend of Mike's, tries to summon a demon named Virgil. So original! It naturally fails and it just leads to Mike's friends getting kicked out. The next day, Mike is late to school. If only he had a skateboard! He finds Alex, a girl (and I use that word loosely) he has a crush on, is late as well. He takes her out and we're "treated" to a montage, like a Jew at Auschwitz is "treated" to the gas chamber. Afterwards, Mike heads to Tony's apartment. Tony apologizes for the incident the night prior, but Mike starts babbling about Ol' Uni instead of listening. Tony insists that Mike gives Alex a "magic" rose, and to tell her that "as long as there's love between us, this rose can never wither," which, as we can all agree, is absolutely stupid.

After the only real horror scenes in the movie (make out sessions between Mike and Alex), something actually happens! Not that it's really interesting, but it qualifies as "something". Mike receives his first vision! He sees Tony getting stabbed. Our hero, however, thinks nothing of it. Why should he? It's only his best friend getting brutally murdered.

The next day, Mike goes to give his rose to Alex, when he sees her getting kissed by Johnny. OH JESUS, THE SCANDAL! Feeling betrayed, Mike goes to contemplate the purpose of unibrows 80's b-culture in an empty classroom. Alex finds him there and tells him that Johnny was being a smartass and that she loves him and only him. Aww... how repulsive. This is apparently sufficient for Mr. PJs, so they start kissing again. Later, Mike at Mike's house, after telling her about his love for racing, we once again are reminded why life is terrible with another kissing scene. This time, it leads to sex. Awkward, phony, hideous sex.

That night, Mike receives his second vision. This time, it's of Debbie getting murdered in her bedroom. Mike's eyes turn red and he can't see where he's going or how terribly he's acting. Mike stumbles into the bathroom, where he pops more pills and his mother freaks out. The next morning, Mike wakes up with his clothes and sunglasses on. While he's watching TV, he sees a face pop out at him, encouraging him to save Christy. Mike leaves for school. During the class, his teacher tells him to save Christy. I can't really tell if this is supposed to be a strange psychic phenomenon, or if the teacher knows Christy is going to die, due to the terrible quality of the movie, but we'll assume it's the former. He then sees Christy bleeding from the head. Mike, however, is still an idiot.

Later, Mike and his mother go to the doctor. He tells Mrs. Smith that Mike is most likely crazy, as trained physicians often do. That night, Mike overhears his mother on the phone with his father. She's convinced Mike's insane. This causes our hero to trash his room in anger, like a deranged chimpanzee. Way to prove sanity, Mike! His phone starts to ring and it's a voice on the other end telling him to go save Christy, as she will die at midnight. Mike is finally convinced that there's something to it and he sneaks out of the house in his stylish dinosaur pajamas. He heads to Johnny and Christy's house, surprisingly not molested by hobos even though he's in his jammies, and tries to warn Johnny. However, he doesn't listen and tells him to leave. Mike then goes to the hospital where Christy works. He awkwardly sneaks past the receptionist and tries to find Christy. Christy is in the hospital lab, being stalked by the killer! OH NO! Mike is too late. As he gets caught by security, another nurse finds Christy's body. The guards rush off to the screaming nurse and Mike escapes. Well trained security guards, those. The killer follows Mike. As it turns out the killer is... Tony's rotting corpse! Actually, it's Virgil, possessing Tony's rotting corpse. After all, he did kill Tony without needing to possess a tangible being, why not take control of the rotting cadaver and lose your omnipotence? Our hero escapes home, where the doctor arbitrarily gives him a sedative.

Johnny heads over to Mike's house after hearing about his sister's death. He finds Mike sedate, so he kidnaps him. Naturally! The next morning, Mike wakes up in Johnny's car. Johnny tries to shoot him, but Mike tells him that Tony's the killer. The two exhaunt to Tony's apartment. A cross is poking out the wall above the bed, in a classy, sacrilegious fashion. The two decide to wait for Tony to come back, because they know he totally will, so while Mike changes, Johnny watches TV. Suddenly, the face Mike saw earlier pops out of the screen. It says that it's Tony, but Mike doesn't believe it. Mike is kind of ethereally stupid, in case you hadn't noticed. So, the face uses it's magical, disembodied face powers to levitate roses and says the magical sappy rose vow. He then tells Mike to go save Robert, as he'll be the next to die. Mike takes this as proof, because he's gullible like that, and he and Johnny go to save Robert.

When they get to Robert's apartment, they find him lying on the floor. At first, they think he's dead, but it turns out he's just drunk. Yep. These are the jokes, people. They carry Rob out of the apartment, despite his protests. When they get to Johnny's car, Rob demands to get his pants. Mike volunteers to claim the pants and tells Johnny not to go anywhere. But, being the rebel he his, Johnny goes to the nearby convenience store. The clerk, seeing Johnny has a shotgun, thinks he's being robbed! Oh, my sides are hurting!

As Mike goes through the apartment, his eyes start turning red again. He sees Virgil heading towards Johnny's car. He stumbles his way down the stairs. However, he's too late once again. Johnny gets back to his car and finds Rob's corpse. Mike starts yelling at him to shoot Virgil. Johnny sees him and shoots Virgil right in the chest. Of course, we all know he's not really going to be dead. As Johnny sticks his head out of the car window, Virgil jams his knife up his throat. Mike manages to regain his sight and drives off. Phew.

Meanwhile, the cops have been looking for Mike, thinking him to be a suspect in Christy's murder. He escapes to Alex's house. She and her parents are in the middle of a dinner with the senator. Why? I'm not sure. Could be her father's silly mustache. Mike runs into the house and after some awkward wine-serving and window-shooting, they try to find Virgil's knife, which he dropped after killing Johnny. They find the knife, but encounter Virgil on the way. The two run to a warehouse, where Virgil is pinned underneath a giant metal... thing. Maybe a lathe, I don't know. Virgil uses his demon magic to levitate Mike a good distance off the ground, because apparently that constitutes an attack in demon world. Mike yells for Alex to kill Virgil with the knife. After some typical hesitation, Alex plunges the knife into Virgil. As he dies, his levitation wears off, and Mike hits the ground hard. Alex rushes to Mike's side and finds him dead from the trauma. We then get to see her cry. For a long. Fucking. Time.

Finally, we have an epilogue. At Mike's funeral, Alex throws the wilted rose he gave her on his coffin. As it falls, the rose suddenly comes alive! It's the power of love, I tell you! We then hear the magic rose quote one final time. Barf bags out.

This movie is as great as it sounds. It's hard to tell if it was intended to be taken seriously or not. The intended comedy terrible, but the movie itself is unintentionally hilarious.

The Moral(s) of the Story: (1) You are never too old for footie pajamas. (2) "Breakfast in Mexico" consists of going on boat rides, getting novelty photos, releasing balloons in the air, feeding ducks, and obtaining ice cream of questionable origin. (3) Bringing a large firearm into any store gets you free cigarettes and is not robbery. (4) Alcoholics leave half-filled bottles of vodka everywhere. (4) Searching for your drunk friends' pants while a demon is hunting him down is less than advisable. (5) Leaving your drunk friend alone while a demon is hunting him down is also less than advisable. (6) Ouija boards are not to be trifled with. (7) Roses are magical! (8) If you have visions of your best friends getting killed, don't bother checking on them.

Screen Shots______________

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