S.I.C.K.

(Serial Insane Clown Killer)

Starring: Ken Herbert, Amanda Watson Written by: Ken Herbert  Directed by: Bob Willems

The Story:  You know how they say there's some good in everyone? That's crap. There are people in the world that are just plain bad news. However there is some good in most awful movies. Unfortunately its usually drowned out by the sheer weight of crud that makes it to the screen. This is one of those movies. It had a good idea, albeit not a new one by any stretch. It could have been a "good" bad DTV release. I mean it could have been fun to watch, but the crud factor was too much for it and it was for the most part....boring.

Brandon Walker manages to score a date for the weekend with a coworker named Tracy. He's invited two friends, Susan and her husband, Mark to his family's cabin in the middle of nowhere and he'd like Tracy to come along. At first she's hesitant, but agrees to go. Along the way to the place the foursome stops at a local bar for a drink, where they pick up a hitchhiking tramp named Denise. Denise claims that she rode into town with a trucker, but needs to get away from him because he said he wants to suck her toes. well, whatever floats your boat, I guess. (Why would anyone want that....man there are some really sick freaks out there!)

So now all five of them go to the cabin. Denise is an odd chick, and she makes the others uncomfortable at times. Why these people actually brought a total stranger on their weekend away with them is unknown....if not unbelievable. I don't know what the time limit is, but there must be a certain amount of time a movie has to spend to be considered a movie. This movie is padded a lot during the first hour of it and its unbearable. I thought I'd spent a weekend watching it. After our heroes get to the cabin we spend way too much time watching them smoke pot and tell ghost stories. Some of this running time is used up in a two sex scenes, one between Brandon and Tracy and later Brandon does the deed with Denise. Susan and Mark also play in bed, but most of their screen time is used for exposition, like how Mark and Brandon knew each other in college, but weren't really that close. That only raises the question of why would Mark then agree to spend a weekend in the woods with someone he really doesn't know....and bring his wife! I remember a lot of folks from my old college days, but even if say, Tony N., a guy I shared a studio with, called me and asked me go to a cabin with him it'd be a big negatory. Sh!t, I wasn't that close a friend to him, why would I want to?

When the next day comes, Susan is missing and there are dolls, one without a head in the fridge. The group keep finding mutilated dolls all over the place, their car has been disabled, the phone lines cut and there are rotting body parts in the shed. But the killer doesn't make an appearance until somewhere around the hour and fifteen minute mark...which is a loooong time to watch this movie. The characters argue, accuse each other of doing this stuff and so on. The only real interesting thing during all of this is Denise. She changes her story every five minutes and none of the others seem to believe her. If not for the fact that the box cover tells us that the killer is a dude dressed up like a clown I'd have thought she was the killer. I don't see how the other characters don't punch her in the mouth though....she says so many off the wall things that are inappropriate, its hard to believe that no one just kicks her ass for general purposes!

Its too bad that you'll wait so long to see the killer because its not worth the long wait. He's just a fat guy with an ugly clown mask on. And there is only one on screen kill. The 2nd kill isn't really seen, we just see Mark collapse with an axe in his back. And the ending, which is supposed to be a surprise is a little lame. by the time the "shock" is revealed you'll have guessed it. So don't bother wasting the time, I'll tell you what it is right now....Brandon, Denise and the clown...his Uncle Billy are in cahoots. they lure people to the cabin so they can kill and eat them with their Weber Human Flesh Cannibal Bar-B-Q Grill.

It takes way too long to get to that payoff and there's not enough blood, gore, good dialogue or nudity to sustain interest in this movie. As I said the idea is there, and its not original but the execution made the flick a chore to sit through. Its not the worst movie I've ever seen, but it sure was a long haul. Be wary,, its been released under the name "Grim Weekend" so you may find it with that title. Well, it wasn't all that Grim but it felt like it took a weekend.

Best Lines:  “She's probably recovering from your giant dick...I know it'd take me a week."- Denise to Mark when he asks where Susan is. Unbeknownst to him, Denise watched him having sex with Susan during the night.

Are you kidding me?

1.) Two women on a weekend date with their men elect to pick up a hot little young female hitchhiker and take her along? I don't think so, Tim. I can suspend disbelief for a lot of things, but that's ridiculous.

2.) I can honestly tell you that these bozos are the last people on earth I'd want to depend on a pinch. Susan is missing, presumably lost in the woods. Brandon, Mark and Tracy stand around arguing about the same point over and over while the hear a scream from the woods, that's presumably Susan. Knuckleheads! To make it worse, the movie tries too hard at this point to generate some tension....Mark keeps saying over and over again "I've got to find my wife!" during this seen. Hey, Mark, I'm waiting for you to get to searching! Tracey comments that Denise is never around when creepy [unwrite] starts happening, but there's only been one real creepy thing so far....the dolls in the refrigerator....and Denise was standing there when she found them....what the hell are you talking about, Tracy?

3.) Denise, the little skank whore, comes on to Mark while they're searching for Susan in the woods. Next thing you know they're stripping down naked getting ready to make hot monkey love on the forest floor.....right. Up until now Mark's been freaking out screaming that he has to find his wife, and now on a whim, in the middle of searching for Susan, who he believes is in some great peril, he decides to f*** some hitch hiking road 'ho?

4.) Boy, I wish the "Can you hear me now....good." guy from those cell phone commercials would make an appearance in some of these cheap ass flicks. I'm so tired of the old "My cell phone doesn't get a signal out here!" shtick.

5.) Uncle Billy utilizes the same kind of Off Screen Teleportation that Jason Vorhees does. There's no way his fat ass could have kept up with Mark when he chases him through the woods. Uncle Billy never even broke into a jog, but Mark was running. He should have easily evade the clown killer.

Nudity and Sex: A quick glimpse of breasts. (Tracy's and Denise, but you got to look fast for the latter. Sex between Brandon and Tracy and Brandon and Denise. For a psycho, this guy gets a lot of ass.

Huh?:

Continuity error! When Brandon and Denise start having sex, Brandon takes her pants off as she lay back on the table. A few seconds later as they get into the mix, you can see she clearly has her pants on. Its a small thing, but it makes you painfully aware that you're watching a movie....and this flick really can't afford to let the audience slip into reality.

What's with the wood chopping scenes? There are scenes of an axe chopping wood that make absolutely no sense. Are you telling me that when they had to pad out the running time for this turkey they couldn't think of anything to insert but an axe hitting a log? Are you kidding me? Hell, it's cheap, but dammit they should have just shown some boobies or something . At least that would have got my attention. as it was I was sitting here fighting sleep.

There are several reasons why the set-up thing doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Number one is how could Brandon and Denise be in on it together. The only reason Denise was even there was because Susan and Tracy wanted to pick her up....which itself is stretching believability.  Also, its revealed that Brandon's gun has blanks in it. But he shot at the door earlier and left bullet holes. Between that time and when Tracy fires the gun I don't see an opportunity for anyone to have reloaded the gun with blanks.  and at the end of the movie Brandon is trying to lure two more people from his job into going to the cabin. But won't the police want to talk to him about the now missing Tracy, Mark and Susan? Unless he's a real criminal mastermind there's no way he could get all of the evidence out of the cabin. These are just the things that I noticed. I'm sure a more attentive viewer can find more.

When the characters first begin to realize that they're in mortal danger the suggestion of walking 12 miles to highway for help is quickly dismissed. Yeah, right. If I thought the difference between life and death for myself was a 12 mile walk I'd do it barefoot in the snow.

There's a totally pointless bit when just before the gang meets Denise, where a barfly named Sophia comes on to Mark and Brandon. I can't for the life of me figure out why this is even in the movie. Well, I guess the actress playing Sophia is a friend of the director's or Ken Herbert.....he played Brandon and he wrote the damned thing.

The Final Judgment: Obviously shot on a low budget, the flick gets an A for effort, but that's about it. For being a shoestring budget movie it does look pretty good, but the Infernal Demons can't really recommend it. It takes far too long for anything to happen and by then you'll be bored and have gone off to do something else with more pizzazz, like cleaning the toilet. The Inferno can only grant it one devil head.