SHITTY FLICKS: TINTORERA

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.

Tintorera is a Spanish "horror" film about two men who look and act like they are fucking each other when no one is looking. Watch them bed beach bunnies, walk around naked, hunt sharks, and lay too close to each other. When dead bodies - victims of shark attacks - begin washing up on the shore, these two men opt to hunt the killer shark themselves. But the movie is less about sharks and more about two hairy men who fuck a lot and are completely deplorable characters. Also, it's one of the most boring movies I’ve ever sat through.

Tintorera, which means tiger shark in Spanish, is a bad, bad film. Not only is the movie utterly devoid of anything remotely interesting, but it also goes so far as to feature completely pointless footage of actual sharks being killed for the sole purpose of making this atrocity. Granted, that may not be a big deal to you, but that’s because you’re a cocker.

The DVD menu offers up either an English or Spanish audio track. I choose English and the movie begins.

The movie opens strongly enough, with stock footage of a shark slowly creeping along the bottom of a dark ocean, complemented by an ominous discordant theme by the always amazing Basil Poledouris, but then the established mood is almost immediately ruined with an awkward cut to a brightly sun-lit Mexican resort, with plain '70s women in their plain '70s bikinis. Lazy, generic Spanish-sounding music plays as people walk around and eat chimichangas (probably).

(Even though I chose the English audio track, the waiter and Mr. Banana Hammock blather on in Spanish for several minutes as I wait for my Rosetta Stone to load. Further, I also chose English subtitles...which appear in Spanish. Thanks for nothing, Desert Mountain Media.)

We meet Steven, who lies forlornly in a hospital bed. Turns out this poor man has suffered a nervous breakdown, so obviously being forced to spend time in a hospital is just what he needs.

We meet Miguel, who apparently has affairs with anyone who looks at him. He uses his circus training to do really unnecessarily showy flips up a balcony in order to get to his affair room.

Sure, vaginas were a hobby, but acrobatics were his life.

Then we meet two American college girls. They hitch a ride from two Spanish men, toting a large truck full of oranges. Then, the following happens:

1.) The truck pulls over.

2.) The girls spill out of the truck and climb on top of the oranges.

3.) The men begin to rape the girls.

4.) The girls attempt to fight off their rapers, but then relent and say, “It will only be worse if we fight.”

5.) One girl says to her friend, before they are raped, “Well Kelly, you wanted to see the world.”

6.) Kelly says to her rapists: “It’s OK. I am going to take off my pants.”

For a movie that already feels like an eternity, we certainly move along at breakneck speed, because we’re already meeting Francisco, a red-headed native whose boat is filled to the brim with a pile of massacred tiger sharks.

Francisco ends up chartering one of his boats to Steven, who plans to use the boat to relax and nurse his stupid brain back to health. Francisco, who is called Redhead by one of his associates, stacks boxes of food on the counter as he chats with Steven, who he calls Blondie, even though the man’s hair is clearly brown.

Two men calling each other Redhead and Blondie. Let that sink in.

Francisco tows up a line - shark traps that he set - and gasps in joy at the dead tiger shark attached to one of the hooks. "I am going to beat it in the head, just in case it’s not dead,” says Francisco. And boy does he. (We get to watch.)

Steven studied and observed Carlos for years,
but he could never figure out a way to grow such a
delightful push-broom mustache.

A nearby shark dive-bombs the dead shark on the line and takes a huge bite, annoying Francisco and pleasing me.

“I’d rather sit in the sun and watch the sharks in the bikinis,” says Steven. The men smile, and then we literally cut to Steven on the deck of his boat with a pair of binoculars looking at the naughty bits of the nearby girls.

Steven picks up a random girl, Patricia, offering her a tray of different drinks, and then uses his unsmiling charm to lure Patricia to his boat for some lobster and some hot hairy cock.

Then they have this meaningful conversation:

Steven: I am very happy because I think I am falling in love with you.

Patricia: Are you sure it is love, or just physical attraction?

Steven: I don’t know.

Thanks for even bringing it up, then, Steven. With crackling dialogue like that, who needs killer sharks?

I do. Please God, gimme gimme.

It seems Patricia didn’t like Steven’s “I don’t know,” because he catches her on the beach with Miguel, the affair man. The two men almost immediately begin fighting, and Steven clocks Miguel a good one across his Spanish face.

“Did you have to use your fists you stupid jerk?” Patricia cries.

I take a moment to ponder how else these two men could have furiously fought on the beach over a woman. Perhaps spirited debate.

Steven gets back on his rubber and farts away as Miguel taunts him from the beach, even though he was the one who got his ass punched to the ground.

Steven goes back to his boat and takes his frustration out on Francisco, who responds with, “Shit. This would even piss off a hermit crab.”

Thirty-four minutes in, and no shark attacks.

"Well, I just had a fuck with Miguel, but if you want,
you can come with me to mass."

Patricia decides to shack up with Miguel, and after a bout of sex, she leaves him lying on the bed, his pale, untanned ass sticking up in the air, and she decides to take a naked swim.

Then we cut to a shark.

Then we cut back to naked Patricia.

Then back to the shark.

Fucking finally.

The shark chews on a wigged-ball of bloody meat; though it’s terribly unimaginative and lazy, I’ll take it.

Steven pulls up to a dock/bar and climbs on. Miguel sits at a table, entertaining some fine-looking “gringas,” but when he sees Steve, he decides to be really funny.

“Get back, it is a wild animal!” he bellows, holding a chair up at Steven like a lion tamer would his beast.

“I hate it when people use me for their jokes,” Steven unemotionally retorts, as I laugh.

The two men inexplicably become friends. Steven sits down with the two college girls who turn out to be the ones who got raped. Seems they’re still enjoying their vacation despite the rape, and they welcome Miguel to bluntly discuss how their asses and boobs are incredible.

The four of them end up on Steven’s boat later, naked as the day they were last fucked, and they just kind of hang out. There’s no sex to be found. Steven swings in the hammock as the girls dance with Miguel.

And it’s not awkward or uncomfortable. Not at all.

Then, a shark swims.

Then it’s back to the naked boat.

Jesus Christ, I hate this movie.

The next morning, the college girls switch sex partners and everyone grinds mere feet from each other. And I don’t care what college you attended, from the School of Hard Knockers to Lost Highway University, that shit is creepy.

Debbie always ended her saying grace with: "And thanks again
for the two cocks to wake me up in the morning."

Later, at a party, everyone jams to some disco, as Francisco grinds with a gringa and ignores his master. Steven gets pissed off at the unauthorized use of his boat and throws everyone off.

It has been 24 minutes since the first and only shark attack, and at 54 minutes into the film, we still have more than an hour left to go.

Let’s pause for an amusing out-of-context excerpt of dialogue.

“What’s this rod for?”

“That’s the surprise I said I had for you.”

Continuing on, the men agree to “rock ‘n roll” and dive in an area known as “the caves,” where the plan seems to be to hunt some fish with a harpoon gun. Right around the time the fifth fish is harpooned, I fast forward until a shark shows up...a shark that is almost instantly shot. The real shark convulses, spewing blood from its wounds and gills, until it eventually succumbs to Miguel, the Speedo-wearing free diver.

Thanks, filmmakers. It sure was worth it, for this is irreplaceable art through which I am currently suffering.

Later, Steven and Miguel sit at a table, staring at a lonesome girl having a drink by herself.

“I bet you I take that girl to bed before you do,” Miguel challenges.

“That’s a bet I wouldn’t want to lose,” says Steven.

Boy, between shooting sharks in the face and making bets to fuck strangers, I can’t help but hope everything works out in the end for these two men.

After seeing the girl off to her hotel room, the men discuss the night’s events.

“The girl could not decide with whom to go to bed. This girl is a professional,” Miguel deduces, being careful not to end a sentence with a preposition.

“Do you think she is a whore?” Steven seriously inquires.

“This girl doesn’t open her legs for money,” Miguel answers. “She might even think we’re gay."

The two men then laugh, after a split second of subconsciously considering the possibility.

The next morning, Steve, Miguel, and their bet go fishing, where she gets to watch a shark be killed close up. They are almost attacked by a tiger shark, but unfortunately, they get away.

Last known photograph.

Then you know what I do? I skip to each chapter of this fucking atrocious movie until I get to the end, because I want to be finished sitting in front of this spewing mess.

The first few seconds of each chapter are as follows:

Chapter 16: Girl holds up a bottle of booze and then casts a hesitant glance behind her.

Chapter 17: Francisco lifts a large squid from a boiling pot and says, “This squid will be delicious.”

Chapter 18: Girl walks across the boat and says to Steven and Miguel, “I would like to have a child. It would be the first child to be conceived by two fathers.”

Chapter 19: Girl kissing her own hand as she looks upset.

Chapter 20: Uncomfortable '70s dancing.

Chapter 21: Steven and a large group of anonymous people walk across the beach. A girl shouts, “I have an idea: Why doesn’t everyone take off their clothes and we’ll go swimming?” All 30 people who are there agree this is a good idea. I am about to skip to the next chapter when a shark makes a rare appearance. He steals the girl from Steven like Winona Ryder steals from anywhere at all and disappears into the darkness.

I am pleased.

Chapter 22: Steven relives his shark encounter to Francisco. “It was horrible, Redhead.”

Chapter 23: A sea plane lands and Steven shows a Marlon Brando-in-The Godfather-looking fellow, Mr. Madison, where the accident took place.

Having reached the last chapter, I figure I can endure a few more minutes of trash.

Francisco and Steven prepare an arsenal of weapons in which to hunt the shark.

Say, where’s Miguel? Was he eaten? Written out of the script? Did he have a falling out with Steven?

I’ll never know, because I’m never sitting through this movie again.

Steven attracts the shark by shooting a skate, and he waits in apprehension for the shark to make its arrival.

Now, as we wait, let me just say this: If the director of this sleaze really wanted to make a point with this movie, he would have Steven, a man who has coldly bedded women and shot sharks in the face for no reason, be eaten by the shark that he was hunting. One shark devouring another, one might even argue.

Well, the music is mounting. Something is about to happen.

And…

Steven shoots the shark, which sinks to the bottom of the ocean, splooging blood from the wound. The assholes win, and we know this for sure, because the movie ends with a shot of Steven, Miguel, and the bet girl smiling and looking into the ocean.

So, to sum up, Tintorera is primarily about two men who fuck women all the time and hang out and discuss fucking women. Sometimes they dance, or have swim races. Sometimes they eat food. Every once in a while, a shark does something.

Tintorera does not attempt, at any time, to be thrilling, poignant, or entertaining. Its struggle for coherence is the only aspect of the film worth mentioning.

That’s pretty bad when that’s the only good thing I can say about your film: It didn’t not make sense.

This movie can eat my balls.

HEY, KNOW WHAT'S A REAL MOVIE?

LEVITY

Who, indeed.

CREEPING BABY DOLL

Model for a “Creeping Baby Doll,” which was patented in 1871:

First of all, creeping is what they called crawling back then, and as recently as the early 19th century the question of whether babies should be allowed to crawl was still hotly debated. Crawling was what crazy people and animals did and as such was morally suspect, even “unnatural” for a sane human. By the mid-1800s, however, crawling was seen as a natural stage of childhood and the popularity of devices such as the standing stool began to wane. Meanwhile … Dollmaking was becoming the province of inventors and machinists, not just designers. After the Civil War, American dollmakers tried to get a piece of the action by upping the mechanization ante. The baby doll with a wax head and a crawling motion powered by an internal clockwork mechanism was an attempt to tap into this trend.

May it forever haunt your dreams.

 

Stolen with love from The Oddment Emporium.

LITTLE MONSTERS (2013)

"It's like he was a toy doll that those boys stole and didn't know what to do with, so they murdered my little baby. It's not right to let them go...just because they turned eighteen. 'Happy birthday, you're free to go.' Free to kill again, if you ask me."

From its very dark opening to its equally powerful closing, the newest film from David Schmoeller (interview with the filmmaker here) represents a drastic new side to the filmmaker for those only previously aware of his minor classics Puppet Master and Tourist Trap. Little Monsters, his first feature in thirteen years and based on a true story, is the sobering story of two murderers named James Landers and Carl Withers, charged with murdering a three-year-old boy named David McClendon. The awfulness of this act is then exacerbated by the notion that James Landers and Carl Withers are themselves only children - ten years old, to be specific. The boys are caught, charged, and sent to a juvenile detention center for eight years. Upon their eighteenth birthdays, they are released into a sort of witness protection program, with new identities in tow. One is released into the care of a parole officer and set up with a job at the law firm Slausen et al. (a nice nod to Tourist Trap), and the other is placed into foster care. Forbidden from contacting their family, friends, each other, or anyone from their past life, the two now-teenagers must find a way to continue some attempt at an existence while living with the fact that they, in a moment of foolishness, took the life of a child.

Earlier I said that Little Monsters (released on television as 2 Little Monsters) represented a new side to writer/director David Schmoeller. And that's because there is nothing quirky or cartoonish about his newest film. (If you were previously familiar with Schmoeller's filmography, then you know not to take offense.) There are no killer puppets or screaming mannequins here. There are no popcorn scares and set-pieces to make audience jumps and then smile in relief. And there is no Charles Band in sight. Instead, Little Monsters is about real-life horror. It is about tragedy, human relationships and behavior, and exploitation. It's about knowing how to recognize evil when it's staring you in the face, but then realizing to even try is futile.

During the boys' reentry into society, the film offers society's reaction their release - from parents of the victim, to parents of the murderers, to a conservative talk-show host and pair of slimy tabloid reporters. One murderer's mother yearns to hear from her son; the other tells her son she used to pray he would die in prison. Some members of society with no direct connection to the case want to see the boys punished, while others wish people would just let it lie. Smartly comprised of traditional narrative mixed with sit-down interviews featuring family members, law enforcement, and political officials, Little Monsters is presented as a docu-drama. And why shouldn't it be? The case on which the film is based is real. The kind of violence and psychosis the film depicts is real. The polarizing reactions society has about the death of one is real. We need look no further than the recent tragedy in Newtown to see that we, as people, will never be united behind any one cause, no matter how obvious it may look. Little Monsters is dark and bleak and fucking angry...but so is life.

Ryan Leboeuf as James and Charles Cantrell as Carl are tremendous in their entirely opposite roles. James (now Bob Fisher) is quiet, reserved, and struggling with the next phase of his life. He sneaks away to reference the notebooks that contain crib sheets on his new identity and shies away from the girl next door who shows him attention. Carl (now Joey Romer), however, makes it abundantly clear he is not ready to re-enter society. He is angry, but smiles his way through it, not caring if he's fooling those around him. And both young actors completely outshine their adult counterparts in every way. 

The script for Little Monsters is very smartly constructed, using the aforementioned narrative- vs. sit-down-interview juxtaposition to convey insights into our characters as well as subjective points of view from those removed from the case; you're essentially getting three stories in one: those who support the boys, those who want to see them punished...and the truth. Everybody is right and everybody is wrong all at once. Minor harm is done to the pacing of the film due to the various characters representing the media, but it isn't detrimental. Schmoeller could have easily "cheated" and kept his sit-down interviews in place without relying on talk-show hosts and tabloid reporters asking questions on the other side of the camera to justify this kind of exposition and insight (Linklater and Clooney do it), but their characters aren't entirely superfluous, either. They serve a purpose and represent different facets - a maddeningly realistic take on how the media responds in time of tragedy - but they could have been easily edited out and affected little.

A limited budget has resulted in limited flair, but the film is not without style. Schmoeller instead relies on tone, and in getting dangerously intimate with our two polar opposite characters. You become witness to their madness as well as their regret; you are forced to experience their crimes as well as their struggle to transcend their status as cold-blooded murderers and prove there's more to them than a wrong decision made by a ten-year-old's mind. But you're also forced to recognize that not everything is as it seems - that evil comes in many forms, and not all of them are obvious.

Little Monsters is currently doing the film festival thing and getting good marks wherever it travels. It is without distribution, but here's hoping that changes soon. It is a film that will challenge your idea of perception and force you to confront the power of denial.

More information can be found on David Schmoeller's website and Facebook.

FANTASTICALLY CRUEL

"I think we should discuss Danny.
I think we should discuss what should be done with him.
What should be done with him?"

If we don't, remember me.

GOOD DOG

“It would perhaps not be amiss to point out that he had always tried to be a good dog. He had tried to do all the things his MAN and his WOMAN, and most of all his BOY, had asked or expected of him. He would have died for them, if that had been required. He had never wanted to kill anybody. He had been struck by something, possibly destiny, or fate, or only a degenerative nerve disease called rabies. Free will was not a factor.”