Rated R Runtime: 95 Minutes Release: 2004
Starring: Perrine Moore, Scott Lunsford, Ali Willingham, Brannon Gould, Joe Haggerty, Darlene Tygrett, Marieno Savoie, Carl Darchuck
Directed by: Joe Castro
Written by: Daniel Benton
The Story:
Some Bad Movies kind of creep up on you. You’ll be watching it, and maybe even enjoying it for a half hour or so until the you suddenly start thinking “Man, this is the stupidest crap I’ve ever seen.”. Near Death, unfortunately doesn’t even wait that long before you realize your in for a treat that’s about as tasty as a Nut-Cheese sandwich. It gets real bad, real fast, and you’ll be wondering how on the earth this movie ever saw the light of the day.
In the flick’s defense I will admit that the first few minutes are promising. We see Career Thug Marky picking up a sleazy chick at a bar. He promises her a real hot time because he knows some friends that own a big house where they can party. The girl is either drunk, high or a combination of both so she gets in Marky’s truck and away they go. Along the way she kind of changes her mind about going off with this total stranger to a place where she’s never been before….(boy, fine to think about personal safety, doll-face…its people like her that make Milk Carton Ink in such high demand)….but ultimately quiets down enough for Marky to get their destination. An old mansion that houses 4 very strange people, three men and one woman. The drunken slut is so out of it she doesn’t really get the idea that her life is in immediate danger until its too late and the mysterious quartet are chowing down her intestines.
The next morning we meet our main characters, June, Billy and Tammy. Here's where the movie begins to slide downhill. Get your seatbelt ready because its only going to gain speed from here on out. First of all, the level of acting is practically non-existent. They lay a little exposition on us, so we'll know what they're up to. These three are students at some college that are working on a project in the paranormal. They're looking for the house of 1940's movie director Wilhelm Von Brahm because its supposedly haunted. VonsBrahm killed a woman named Maria way back in the day and somehow that caused "Maria's curse". The little exposition here doesn't tell us what this curse is about, but who cares? You'll be waiting to see how Billy is going to use his new computer program to prove that spirits don't exist! How a computer program is going to do that I don't know....Billy should have tried to figure out a program that would tell me why Photoshop eats memory like french fries, then I'd be impressed. You also won't be able to not notice how Tammy is an insufferable bitch. If that hasn't dawned on you yet, don't fret, my droogies, it will before the end of this flick. She claims to be a drama student (on a parapsychology investigation?) and I'm betting she's gotten by in college only by the grace of her big tits, which ironically is probably how the actress playing her probably got this part.....'cuz it sure wasn't acting.
Their reception at the Von Brahm mansion is less than warm. The current inhabitants of the house not only tell our trio that they were not expected, but that they are definitely not welcome and should leave immediately. The most vocal of them, Dr. Blanchard seems incapable of saying anything unless he yells it, and yells it he does, bellowing that "MY RESEARCH MUST NOT BE DISTURBED!!!!". Despite the fact that the occupants want them to leave their home, Tammy, June and Billy go on to explain to them that they want to investigate the mystery of Maria's Curse and that if they are turned away more people wishing to look into the haunting will arrive. For some reason Vena Marshwood convinces the others sharing the house, Blanchard, Heinrich and Harlan that it looks like they have no choice, but warns the trio of investigators that they can only stay for one weekend and after midnight they must stay in their rooms until dawn.
After being escorted to her room, June goes to light a candle and a chill fills the air. Excited she says "Already a cold spot!" and we get to see fake CGI breath come out of her mouth to help convince us that there is a cold spot. And her exclaiming there's a cold spot is about the end of any real parapsychology phrases you'll hear. The items in her room start shaking and June calls out for Von Brahm to speak to her and show her the secrets of the Other Side. (hmmmm....I thought paranormal investigators were a bit more scientific then that). Heinrich shows Tammy and Billy their room, and reminds them by yelling at them NOT TO COME OUT OF THEIR ROOM AFTER MIDNIGHT! He makes quite a show of bellowing these words so we can see all of the black gunk in his mouth. Out of all of the strange behaviour of the occupants in the house, none of the investigators notices that all of them seem to have mouthfuls of dark grape jelly. But then, these guys ain't very good investigators. Billy sets up his "Spectrometer" which is really just a laptop and a walkie-talkie that serves as some kind of remote. I guess Bill Gates is now bundling Symantec Spookhunter v.1.0 in Windows XP. This takes all of ten seconds to set up so Billy and Tammy decide to get ready to have sex in the home of total strangers that don't really want them in the house, even though they're supposed to investigating a haunting of some kind. Downstairs though, Vena, Heinrich, Harlan and D. Blanchard are relieved that they can now finish their meal...the bloody carcass of the skanky ho that Marky brought to them the night before. This would be at least disturbing if it even looked like they were eating a human corpse, but what we get to see are close ups of the actors filling their gobs with red and purple Jell-O. You know, I don't like to watch people eat up close in real life, so why do I want to see these nimrods eating Jell-O and pretending its human guts? Its not scaring me, its only making me dislike Jell-O-brand Gelatin. At the same time upstairs, Billy and Tammy are just about to get it on when Tammy playfully bites Billy shoulder, pissing him off and making him not want to screw her anymore....which means, I guess that he wasn't that committed to the idea of having sex in the first place. Then his laptop starts buzzing indicating that his magical software has somehow detected a ghost. He wants to inform June right away, but Tammy, who is already plucking my last nerve, wants to stay and do the ol' Bed sheet mambo. Can someone tell me why they brought her along?
Billy goes to get June who is seeing images of the occupants in the mirror. Then all three of them start walking around the house while Billy's little walkie-talkie tricorder thing registers spirit activity. No, I'm not buying that but that's what they do. Suddenly the device begins to spark and the ghost of Von Brahm appears next to June, grabbing her and screaming "MARIAAAA!"...which is what this ghost screams all of the time, and frankly, after watching this flick three times to take my notes I'm about ready to beat any girl named Maria down myself. The ghost also backhands the [unwrite] out of Billy, blows flame in Tammy's face and then vanishes. (Unfortunately Tammy appears to fireproof and thus unharmed). Billy and June elect to leave at once, seeing how neither the houses occupants or the resident mean, cranky, Maria-screaming ghost wants them around. Tammy however is fascinated and wants to stay. Billy threatens to break up with her if she does and she replies 'I'm ready to move on.'. Tell me, why did they bring her again? Billy and June pack and leave for a hotel and June tells Vena on their way out that they'll be back to resume research at a later time.
Ok, lets recap this crud for a moment.....these three paranormal investigators show up, unannounced at the house of Von Brahm, right? Tammy says they didn't have a phone or email so she wrote them a letter informing them they want to investigate the house. So without receiving word that they had permission to do this, they show up anyway. The people in the house tell them to get lost. But when June tells them that others will probably come to investigate Vena all of sudden reluctantly agrees to let them stay? What the hell? Vena could just say "We'll kick them off of the property too.". Then after getting permission to conduct the investigation the only thing they do is have Billy open a laptop! When the ghost makes an appearance (in the mirror and when it manifests to them downstairs) June appears to be frightened out of her wits. She's an Assistant Professor of Parapsychology? Tammy, who has been nothing but an annoying slightly slutty bitch decides to stay and Billy doesn't seem to upset about it. But why are they leaving? Because they're scared of the ghost? They're Ghost hunters! isn't that kind of like a professional fisherman quitting the job because he got a little wet and decides he doesn't like water very much? When you add the [unwrite]ty acting into all of this, the movie becomes a real, real, hard watch. and this is only the first half hour. But get ready, boys because the movie takes a pause in the "action" to really kick you in the nuts. Billy and June get to a Motel and June goes to take a shower....Billy wryly asks 'want me to join you?' and gets in with her and June doesn't object! Hell, he just broke up with Tammy! Well, alright, maybe none of them have any morals or are incapable of true feeling (I'd buy that, by the acting) but pains are taken to not show us a damned thing when June gets in the shower. We're treated to a minute or two of watching THEIR FEET while they're naked in the shower! I know I've said it before, I know Nate Shumate at Cold fusion has said it before and I know various others in the Rogue Reviewers and the B-Masters have said it....if you're not gonna really show any nudity then don't even go there with the "You can almost see her boobs" thing. its just freaking annoying especially since this scene didn't have to be in the movie at all and to be honest, doesn't make a lick of sense anyway. Asshole movie.
BUT....it gets dumber! Tammy who is smitten with Harlan takes him to bed. Its not shown, really, but afterwards Tammy is in her bra and panties while Harlan tells her he's just like the others in the house, caught between life and death. A living body with no soul. The souls of Harlan, Vena, Dr. Blanchard and Heinrich are trapped in the mirrors throughout the house. Thus they cannot die, but they can't leave the house. But the living dead need to eat so they must feast on dead human flesh every night in order to perpetuate their unlife. Now, a normal woman, even a dumbass bitch like Tammy would run from the house screaming like a banshee and never set foot in the [unwrite]ing state it was in again after hearing that. But Tammy just gasps and says "You're ghouls! Only ghouls eat the dead!" and then relaxes (Hey you just screwed him, sister). Oh, man, this flick just really made me hate it. Harlan goes on to tell her that she can be one of them and live a deathless life. Yeah, trapped in an old ass house with a bunch of fruitcakes and forced to eat dead people. Sounds like a good career move, Harlan, you putz. You shouldn't be shocked to know that Tammy wants to stay despite all of this.
Back at the motel, Billy has his first run in with Marky. Marky is mistreating another woman in his truck outside the motel when Billy decides to be a hero and gets dumped on his ass. Only when Marky stalks off, Billy finds one of the gold deutschmark coins that the ghouls have been paying him with to supply them with bodies to eat. After showing it to June she makes the first of her fantastic leaps in knowledge of what's going on by saying that she thinks Tammy would know of how it links Von Brahm, the people in the house and Marky together. The dim-witted duo then decide they'd best go see Tammy and ask her, but as they approach the house they see Marky leaving. Billy follows Marky while June goes to find Tammy. This should almost count as padding. Billy follows Marky to a Coin dealer that is "right down the street from the bar where Marky works" (which happens to be next to their motel, so in essence, he just followed Marky back to where he came from) and after talking to the coin dealer after Marky leaves the only thing Billy finds out is that Marky's name is...Marky. Meanwhile June confronts Tammy who is sitting on the beach by the house, which only results in Tammy yelling "Leave me alone!" and running back into the house. Dejected, June walks off onto the beach where a ghostly voice calls her to a nearby cave. There she sees the ghost of Maria, who implores her to free her soul. Amazingly, Maria looks exactly like June (same actress). At least the ghost of Maria is moving a bit, June stands absolutely still which is perplexing. Most people would get agitated I'd think when a ghost walks up to them and speaks; especially one that's your freakin' twin. Then the ghost of Von Brahm appears and yanks Maria back to the spirit world. Feeling that June needs to move a little, though, Von Brahm reappears behind her seconds later and screams "MAAAARIAAAA!" a few times, causing her to scream also. Luckily its just about time for Billy to come back.....he found an old photo of Harlan on the beach dated at 1947, when he hears Maria screaming and comes running. Maria seems a bit to calm when he gets there, but I guess she screamed all of the awe and amazement of having seen two ghosts at the same time out. Besides, she should be more in awe that a photograph survived lying on the beach for half a century.
God, this movie just won't end, and it refuses to make any sense or get any better. In fact it does the opposite. June prints out an article about Von Brahm killing Maria from the forties, even though their laptop has no printer or internet connection to speak of. June makes another one of her intuitive leaps by telling Billy that the people in the house are undead and Von Brahm wants her for her soul because she looks like Maria....and that Tammy is going to lose her soul at the house. June even intuits that Marky brings them bodies to eat. How she knows that, I don't know, I guess its in the script. Billy goes to confront Marky about the whole thing, and Marky for no good reason admits that he gets paid to bring the ghouls bodies to eat and then pulls a knife. Billy, chicken[unwrite] that he is, talked all tough, but when Marky pulls out his pissy little knife he runs off.
Marky has bigger problems than Billy being on to him though. His boss fires him at the bar so he goes to the Von Brahm house, intent on robbing it. The ghouls catch him in the act and instead of pulling his pissy little knife on them he makes a run for it, only so Dr. Blanchard can stab him in the back a half dozen times. The ghouls then decide to eat Marky so they feast on his body and Tammy joins them! Now the footage of the ghouls eating gelatin is used again, but its funny this time because Tammy is supposed to be eating with them. but in any of the wide shots she's NOT there! Instead we get a tight close up of Tammy eating the flesh of Marky. Which again, is confusing...when did she become undead? Is her soul in the mirror now? Hell, how did any souls get in the mirror in the first place? The ghouls now face a dire fate...without Marky they have no one to bring them any fresh dead meat. (why didn't they ask Tammy to do this....I mean, is she REALLY a ghoul now? Aw, who f***ing cares). Heinrich decides that he is going to go out and bring them food, even though the others tell him he can't leave the house or he'll be destroyed. Heinrich doesn't listen, so he walks outside and in a special effect that is almost cool, melts into goo and [unwrite]. I say almost cool, because its mostly CGI and the parts that aren't CGI look decent for a cheapass flick. But alas, its too little too late to make this movie worthwhile.
Vena communicates with the ghost of Von Brahm, who commands her to bring June to him. Vena then talks Tammy into calling her former friends....Tammy is hungry you see, she's starving for more human flesh, so I guess she has become a ghoul. Determined to save the utterly worthless ho skank Tammy, Billy and June enlist the aid of a priest, Father O'Neal. They tell the priest that they need help exorcising the ghost of Von Brahm, and the priest says that its been tried (!) in the past and failed. Look, I'm not a catholic, but I thought that it took a lot of steps and requests for an exorcism. Not in this flick it doesn't though, since the priest is easily swayed into coming to the house with them. O'Neal tells them that after Von Brahm killed Maria in a crime of passion he cut her heart out. The law couldn't do much from lack of evidence so Maria's mother cursed Von Brahm and all that lived in the house until Maria's body is found. Von Brahm soon after took his own life by jumping off of a cliff. Still, O'Neal is hesitant to do anything, fearing Von Brahm's evil spirit. But June suggests they could have a séance and ask Maria herself where her body is. (no one thought of this before?) and O'Neal...get this....stands up and says "Lets proceed.". Just like that. Does the Catholic Church fund Parker Bros. or something?
Tammy however has a trick up her sleeve. She convinces the ghouls to hide in the basement when Billy, June and O'Neal arrive. O'Neal gets whacked pretty easily for someone who has the divine backing him up, but June's séance is a success. The spirit of Maria tells her where the body is, even though Von Brahm makes an appearance to stop her. Once the trio finds the body and the all, they free her spirit, which then destroys Von Brahm's ghost. For some reason this makes the ghouls go nuclear, and they break out of the basement and attack the trio. Now, you'd probably be afraid if a flesh eating ghoul came after you, wouldn't you? Don't be, because these ghouls are so easy to kill, its an insult to the audience. You simply pull their faces off! I'm not joking, here, my droogies, that's how each of them dies, and its sucktacular. And what are they pissed about? They claimed that they were afraid that Von Brahm would claim their souls from the mirror, so if Tammy and company destroyed Von Brahm wouldn't that be something of a relief? Actually, why are they even still there? If Finding the body is supposed to break Maria's curse wouldn't that free them? It seems that it freed Tammy, since the epilogue has her asking why she was spared (from what?) and June telling her some bull[unwrite] about because she loved Harlan or something. the end of the movie takes one last kick in the balls of originality by having Von Brahm appear and jump out at the trio of morons.
Its ironic that this movie was about people that eat dead bodies because it was as fun to watch as a funeral. Laughable acting, a story that may have been good, but here made no sense and characters you couldn't give a rats ass about. This Near Death experience is one you don't need, my droogies and only friends.
Best Lines: “I'm a priest, not a saint!"- Father O' Neal when Billy tries to shame him into helping by asking if he's scared of Von Brahms.
“I loved you and now I'm gonna kill you!!"- Harlan when Tammy betrays the ghouls.
Are you kidding me?
1.) Billy's invention....the Spectrometer....is lame even by Goober and the Ghost Chasers standards. But what really kills me is that these so called paranormal investigators don't have the most basic of equipment that you would expect them to have. No camera, no one is taking notes and no tape recorder. I'm not Hans Holzer, but damn, if you're trying to prove that ghosts may be haunting a place, wouldn't you bring something to help you prove it?
2.) I know you have to have at least a small amount of courage to be a ghost hunter, but after the ghost appears screaming and trying to choke June, smacks Billy and then vanishes would you just stand around calmly debating on whether or not you should just the hell out of dodge? This is one of those things that can ruin even a good movie about ghosts...when the characters don't act like what any normal human being would act like. They're not shocked or scared or nervous. In real life anyone who witnessed that would at the very least show some emotion.
3.) For some reason Tammy is attracted to Harlan from the git-go. Not being a woman I can't really tell you what girls find attractive in a man, but ladies help me out here. Is it really dumb looking pencil thin moustaches and black icky teeth? It must be because if you add a face that looks like at one time it had a protracted battle with acne and you've got Harlan.
4.) You know, my wife won't even let me cook chitterlings in the house, but Tammy is practically unfazed when Harlan tells her he eats cadavers!
5.) Billy finds an old autographed photo of Harlan on the beach, half buried in the sand....and its completely legible. what the hell were photographs or paper made of in the forties? There's no way I'm believing that it would last in the sand, exposed to the elements for FIFTY years. Good Lord, was the director drunk when this scene came up?
6.) Dammit, movie! Make up your stupid mind! when we first meet Billy he says he's going to prove that there are no such things as ghosts. Which is odd already since he claims his new software program will prove that. (why would you build a software program to prove something like that, if such a thing were possible? I dunno.) Then he sees a ghost, indeed, the ghost of Von Brahm knocks the spit out of his mouth. But when June tells him that the people in the house are the undead and their souls are trapped in the mirrors, he gets all doubtful again about the paranormal stuff. Dude, you just saw about three paranormal events in TWO days. I don't believe in elves, but Ernie Keebler took me inside of his hollow tree and gave me some damned cookies I'd be a bit flexible about my beliefs!
7.) Man, I love the part where Tammy calls Billy in an effort to lure him and June to the house so the ghouls can kill them. She cries in the phone "Billy, please come get me I'm scared, please get me out of here.". Billy being a limp noodle dick says 'ok, don't worry, yeah, we'll come.". Boy if a girl that treated me the way she treated him called me saying that it would go something like this:
Girl: "Dante, please come get me....I'm scared, Dante, Please help me."
Me: *click*
8.) At first I thought that it was a plot contrivance when Tammy talks the ghouls into hiding downstairs when Billy, June and father O'Neal come to the house. she tells them that Billy's strong and can overpower them. I was thinking damn, there's like four of you. he can't be that damned strong. I was wrong, not that Billy was actually strong, but the Ghouls are ridiculously easy to kill. My neighbors 15 year old daughter could wipe the floor with them and she weighs about 90 lbs. soaking wet.
Nudity and Sex: The boobs of a dead female body are seen. No sex is seen but its implied. June and Billy take a shower together nut again, nothing explicit is seen.
Huh?:
Billy has his little ghost detecting device, which is the cheapest looking excuse for a prop I can think of, in his hands claiming that its detecting a spirit so powerful it'll blow the system. (He says this with all the urgency of a man saying he'd better close the windows before it rains) Little (badly) animated sparks shoot out of the thing to give the illusion that its going to overload. If you were holding an electrical device and sparks started jumping out of it, would you keep on holding it? Then again, this is one sophisticated device. I guess it has some kind of remote connection to his laptop which he left upstairs in the house, but after the (not) scary episode is over Billy claims that the system crashed. How? The only thing on his remote are two or three LED's. No display of any kind. How can he tell if anything has happened?
June says she wants to check something on the laptop as Billy goes to the bar next door to their motel. A few minutes later she comes into the bar and tells Billy to look at something she just printed out. But, they didn't have a f***ing printer! How'd she print anything out? Was there a Hi-Speed Kinko's in between the Motel and the Bar?
Marky's a thug that works cheap. The coins the ghouls pay him in are worth fifty bucks apiece. So he gets maybe 2 coins per body he brings them to feast on? I wouldn't bring a ghoul a dead squirrel for 50 bucks. Let alone help someone commit murder or dig up a fresh corpse for that kind of chump change.
June should consider a new line of work. for someone so easily terrified, Professor of Parapsychology doesn't sound like a good gig for her.
Do people usually put the year on their autographs? Harlan did, but I don't think its an actual practice famous people do.
Tammy ate Marky's body and was proud of it. you know, I don't see how Billy or June would even want to help her let alone be her friend after that.
I'm thinking of creating a joint minority/ catholic priest task force to rid the world of this crap in movies. We all know that usually the minority character in a movie is gonna die pretty damn fast when the monster/ghost/alien shows up. Ever notice that priests get the ticket to the pearly gates pretty damned fast too? If its a demon and a priest comes to save the day, they usually end up getting kacked. This move took the cake. Father O'Neal got killed so fast I wondered why they even brought him into the movie.
These ghouls sure die easy. Stupid movie.
The Final Judgment: The Infernal Demons wouldn't recommend this movie even if you could see it for free.
Near Death is now promoted to full death, and with any luck, it will never return from the Afterlife to torment mankind with its extreme crappiness.
