Judging by the number of people in the entourage of Dayton Ohio author and independent film director Carl Merritt, it's almost as if he rounded up all his nightclub buddies and associates one night and said, "hey, gang, let's make a movie". Unfortunately, the movie does absolutely nothing to dispel that image.
Yet, is that really such a bad thing? Abe's Tomb is one of those movies that might well finally steal the dubious title of "The Worse Movie Of All Time" from the generally agreed-upon title holder, Plan Nine From Outer Space by Ed Wood. Maybe we need those kinds of films, the kind of movies that, as the old cliche' goes, are so bad they're good, and become cult classics in their own right. The kind of thing that gets played at drunken frat boy type parties, movies where the plot, characters, dialogue, action-well, hell everything is so damned contrived, pointless, irrelevant, corny, cliche' ridden, wooden, and obviously staged-and the acting so bad-that what is meant to be a horror film, in this case, almost always turns out to be hilarious. And I'm not talking dark comedy here.
Briefly, the plot of Abe's Tomb revolves around a scheme by a group of vampires determined to destroy mankind and usher in a new vampire nation. The only hope for the hapless humans is an evil entity who happens to be the lone being who can foil their evil plot. One of the stars of this mess is Amanda Fire (not the British porn actress of the same name, but an aspiring Dayton Ohio model and actress), who plays the queen of the evil vampires-I think her name is actually Vampra, for God's sake-and who seems to have vanished from the face the earth shortly after the film was made, judging by the last time her website seems to have been updated. I don't think I can blame her much for that move.
You don't really have to take it from me how bad this thing is either. Carl Merritt has obligingly provided the following YouTube trailer-a full three and a half minutes-which will tell you more about the film than I could ever come close to doing. The trailer ends with a promotional dialogue by Amanda and one of the other female stars of this exercise in-hell, I don't even know how to end this sentence.
Just watch the trailer. The irony is, this thing might over time end up making Carl Merritt a millionaire many times over. Just not for the reason he intended.
5 comments:
wow
must get DVD
the kind of movies that, as the old cliche' goes, are so bad they're good.
For me, films like "Plan 9" or this one aren't really in that category, because it's quite obvious they were DELIBERATELY made this way. A true "Worst Film of the year/all time" requires that the author sincerely invests all his talent trying to make a good movie, but still falls flat on the face (say, "The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button" or "W"...)
This film looks just as competently made as any garden-variety porno movie.
Porno companies like Private have big budgets. Some technical people work mainstream as well.
I won't argue with you, about being a bad movie.
Quim-
You can get it from Amazon, but a new DVD is something like twenty-four dollars. You might be able to get a fairly good quality used one for ten.
Sonia-
I don't think you quite get the concept of "so bad that it's good". Plan Nine or Abe's Tomb falls into that category because people actually like to watch them for laughs. You get a kick out of seeing the horrible acting, the technical glitches such as wires suspending a flying saucer or a microphione hovering in the background, tombstones swaying or even falling over at the slightest touch, etc.
All people get out of watching a bad mainstream movie is a feeling they've wasted their time and their money, and they get no enjoyment from them on any level.
People will be watching and discussing Plan Nine years after Benjamin Button and W are distant all-but-forgotten memories, and for that matter the same holds true for a good many other recent Oscar nominees-and maybe even some of the actual winners.
Ren-
I hope that flu ain't kicking your ass too bad. I feel for you, and hope you get well soon. Take care of yourself. The Blogrolling fiasco can wait until you're well.
You should check out the films of Damon Packard. They're so weird they're... well, I don't know. I like what I've seen of them though.
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