Shitty Flicks is an ongoing column
that celebrates the most hilariously incompetent, amusingly pedestrian,
and mind-bogglingly stupid movies ever made by people with a bit of
money, some prior porn-directing experience, and no clue whatsoever. It
is here you will find unrestrained joy in movies meant to terrify and
thrill, but instead poke at your funny bone with their weird, mutant
camp-girl penis.
WARNING: I tend to give away major plot points and twist endings in my reviews because, whatever. Shut up.
Cynthia Rothrock is Kristi Jones, a street-fighter who spars in alleys in order to make money for her baby sister to go to college. Her hair will change dramatically from scene to scene, haphazardly, and for seemingly no reason.
John Miller is Nick DiMarco, a no-nonsense cop whose loose early-'90s wardrobe is no match for his early '90s non-personality. He often works out using a large bow-staff with a pink ribbon tied around his waist.
By themselves, they are just people.
Together, they are Undefeatable.
Our story begins with Anna, a tearful, flowered-dress housewife confiding to her psychiatrist, Dr. Simmons, about the abusive ways of her husband, Paul (aka Stingray). She tells of his sociopathic tendencies, of the physical abuse, and his cold demeanor. This scene so desperate to drip with drama is intercut with the husband in question, who resembles a thick-faced and insane Jerry Seinfeld (the one from the '80s with the mullet), beating the hell out of a fighter in a ring. Stingray stares into the camera, seething with crazy, dripping with sweat.
Thick blood spews from his adversary’s mouth as he delivers a deathly elbow-drop to his back, all shot in glorious slow motion.
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| Jerry Seinfeld wasn't paid a million dollars per episode because of his show's popularity; it's because he was crazier than a shithouse rat, and NBC executives were terrified. |
Dr. Simmons urges Anna to leave him, for her own safety as well as for the sake of the “plot.”
Well…she does. But more on that later!
It’s time to meet Nick DiMarco, the flattest male lead you’ll ever see in a moving picture.
Two punks attempt to knock over a convenience store, brandishing their weapons. During this, a small child hands a can of COCA-COLA over the counter, unaware of the current situation.The COCA-COLA can, which contains COCA-COLA, hovers in our line of vision for several seconds.
One of the thieves pushes the small boy, who slides an impossible distance across the floor, right into the legs of Nick DiMarco.
“Maybe you’re too much of a chicken shit to pick on someone your own size,” Nick says drably, as if speaking to his cat.
Fighting ensues, as one of the thieves brandishes a cartoonishly large blade.
“SUCK MY DICK!” he oddly bellows, swooping in for the kill.
A quick point of Nick’s gun right into the thief’s cock causes him to give up pretty quickly.
Nick’s partner enters, unconcerned, and manages,“C’mon, Nick. We’ve gotta go!”
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| Nick DiMarco wows yet another patron with his Human Doll impression. |
Meanwhile, Kristi Jones and her entourage of Asians meet a black gang in a back alley, ready to fight. In what appears to be goofy, ridiculous tradition, the Asians begin to clap their hands in unison as the black gang stamp the wall behind them, also in unison.
I guess it’s to make sure the audience knows how hardcore this scene is doing to be.
Well, Kristi wins the fight and goes to collect her money when the cops—you betcha, one of them being Nick!—show up to spoil the fun.
The Asians descend to the local college campus to meet Kristi’s sister, Karen. The Asian gang jokes that their high IQs make it impossible for them to enroll in college (?) before becoming morose and remembering the whole reason they're even there is to tell Karen that her sister has been arrested.
“The cops swept the neighborhood and arrested anyone under 30!” they claim, which is hilarious, seeing as Rothrock is clearly much older than 30.
Back at the station, Nick interrogates Kristi, trying to find out who has been organizing the street fights. Kristi plays it cool and dumb and Nick lets her go, citing, “That kid’s okay.”
Yep…that 37 year-old kid.
Anna, still in her flowered-dress (it’s important to keep noting that), nervously cooks over a steak as her abusive love, Stingray, returns home.
“Hi Anna!” he happily exclaims, moments before savagely and robotically raping her over the kitchen counter. And with each thrust, Stingray’s mind wanders to the fight earlier that day, as his unshelled lobster meat-looking hair flops around on his square head. The rape continues and he dreams of punching black men. He also calls Anna “mommy.” (As the rape ensues, check out the giant box of Kit Kats on top of the fridge. Thanks, corporate sponsors!)
Stingray, having completed both his fuck and his steak, leaves to collect his money from the day’s fight from his “agent” (I guess), Lou.
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| Rape Face™ |
Stingray returns home to find a note from Anna saying she has left him. He then flips out and throws stuff for several minutes, all in completely cheesy slow-mo. It even shows an exterior of the house as we hear him continue to break shit and scream, which is a device I thought was reserved only for comedies.
I guess this counts.
As insane as Stingray was before, now it’s safe to assume that he’s totally and completely flipped shit.
“Anna…I’LL FIND YOU” he bellows into the mirror, but then breaks the mood and applies layer after layer of hairspray to his already-stagnate hair as he trades smoldering stares with himself in the mirror.
And find her he does. Or at least he thinks he does.
In a nearby parking garage, an Anna-looking woman in a flowered dress is necking with an Asian prep. Stingray demands "Anna" come home with him, obviously confusing everyone, and it leads to a fight. Unfortunately for the Asian man, but fortunately for all of us, his eyes are plucked out and he’s thrown over the ledge, breaking his fall on an SUV.
Stingray takes "Anna" back to his warehouse, where he proceeds to chain her up and punish her for leaving him, which is just more chains, only this time whipped at her back. She doesn’t much like it.
Her body is later found in a port-o-potty, where Nick and his partner are investigating.
“The sick bastard poked her eyes out!” his partner exclaims. They trade steely glances, decide on a course of action, and they both leave in amusing and distracting symmetrical unison.
Kristi, meanwhile, is back doing what she does best: fighting. Her latest opponent, Bear, tries his best, but just like any investor who put money into this movie and expected a return, he didn’t have a chance. Kristi’s Asian entourage looks suitably pleased.
Bear ends up flat on his back, signaling his defeat. He then leaves with his flowered-dress wife, which catches the attention of Stingray. (Have you noticed a trend yet?)
Bear tries his best, but ends up failing at fighting for a second time, as Stingray crushes the man’s trachea.
Later, Stingray spies a third Anna: Karen, Kristi’s sister, who is by far the weakest actor in the film (and that’s saying something). Karen’s Asian companion attempts to intervene, but is promptly tossed into a pole.
Things don’t end well for Karen.
Meanwhile, Kristi practices swirling and twirling in her backyard with a set of steel weapons that I believe are called “stupid things.” These candy cane-shaped tools couldn’t be less intimidating if they were made of twisted cinnamon bread. Clearly the filmmakers didn’t just make these weapons up, and I am sure they legitimately exist, and in a GOOD movie, I would have accepted their odd construction and moved on, but we’re not in a good movie.
We’re in Undefeatable.
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| Stingray's habit of spitefully tasting wedding cakes in front of the bridal party lost him many catering jobs. |
Nick drops by with the unfortunate news of Karen’s demise, telling her she must come identify the body, which is very obviously a male's body covered under heavy make-up prosthetics. Rothrock attempts to transition from twirling stupid things, which she is good at, to acting, which she is not. The result is tremendously pleasing.
Kristi notes a series of scratches on her sister’s body, which is a result from a martial arts move called the “Eagle Claw.”
Kristi leaves, thirsting for vengeance, and finds Eagle Lee, a Wang-Chung looking dude in full fire-engine red windbreaker regalia, and master of the “Eagle Claw.” The fight, which for some reason takes place overtop a fleet of barrels, doesn’t last long; Nick shows up, playing the concerned potential-lover role, and breaks it up.
At Karen’s funeral, Kristi stands over her sister's supposed-to-be fresh grave, which clearly has been there for years, the thick, unmowed, undisturbed grass being the dead giveaway.
Thanks to the help of Dr. Simmons, Anna’s shrink, Nick and his partner end up at Stingray’s house, hoping to bring him in. They do not, and that’s good, because this leads to Lou going to Stingray’s warehouse hideaway, where he finds a fish tank full of eyeballs.
“Why would Stingray have a fish tank full of eyeballs?” he honestly asks himself aloud.
After that, he finds a dead girl shoved in a container, and he figures it’s probably time to peace out.
And peace out does - out of Earth, that is, thanks to a bit of strangling via Stingray's rippled arms.
After that, Stingray finds Dr. Simmons at her office. Simmons attempts to fight him off (why does every single person in this movie who isn’t supposed to be playing a fighter still know how to fight?) but it doesn’t really work. Once that fails, a bit of mind-fucking is in order, first pretending to be Anna, and then his mother, a la Friday the 13th: Part 2.
You know your movie is in trouble when you’re stealing from a Jason movie.
Regardless, her “I’m your mommy” thing works primo…a little too well, even.
He grabs her and bends her over a table.
“C’mon, mommy. I wanna play.” He then starts feeling her up.
Ew, Stingray. Gross.
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| "My son Treat Williams is a chip off the old block, ain't ya sport?" |
He then chains her up and leaves to buy food. Dr. Simmons manages to finagle her ringing phone out of her purse and answer it with her foot. It’s Kristi on the other end, and Dr. Simmons shouts her location.
Kristi swings by and immerses in a breathtaking fight with Stingray, featuring slow motion, flying boxes, swords versus her “stupid things,” and even a scene of slow-mo raining packing peanuts, which I’m sure Quentin Tarantino, the dumb shit lover, awed over more than once.
Nick and his partner show up and ruin the choreographed fighting with a boring shootout, which results in his partner's death and Stingray's escape.
“Breathe, you bastard,” Nick urges emotionally to his partner, but in the way that Nick shows emotion, which is...not.
Nick and Kristi begin to leave the hospital where Dr. Simmons is staying after her encounter with Stingray. Not because of sudden epiphany or suspicious behavior do Nick and Kristi suddenly turn around and head back to the shrink's hospital room, but because of a forgotten pair of sunglasses.
Once there, they see that Stingray has kidnapped Dr. Simmons.
Again.
Dr. Simmons breaks free of Stingray and flees, with Kristi hot on her heels to provide assistance of the female variety.
And then this glorious, fan-fucking-tastic piece of cinema happens:
After the fight, Kristi, Nick, and her Asian men gather at Karen’s gravesite, where Kristi makes her amends and pledges never to fight again. The Asian entourage looks sad at this news, but Kristi drops the bombshell that she has enrolled all of them at the local college. Then Nick drops the bombshell that he has enrolled HER at the local college.
Everyone yells in happiness and the movie ends in a group high-five before they have time to realize that they are all going to have to pay a shitload of money for college classes that they didn’t pick, let alone desire.
Until next time…I’ll be keeping an eye out for ya.
SEE YA.
