Trauma (1978)

So here we go again. A foreign movie dubbed into English. This time it's an on the edge of your seat, thrill ride of a roller coaster called Trauma, or Enigma Rosso, or Red Ring of Fear, or Virgin Killer, and the list keeps going... Frankly I'd go with Virgin Killer, mostly because it shares the name with a Scorpion's album with a very inappropriate album cover.

Trauma wasn't as horrible as I thought it would be. Don't get me wrong it's still pretty bad, but I guess it could have been a lot worse. Mostly it's kind of an ordinary movie with weird subplots that seem to go nowhere. Like the main character is a detective, who happens to be dating a woman who's a kleptomaniac. Why is she a kleptomaniac? No real reason, she just likes to steal things... it adds absolutely nothing to the story. Though it doesn't really matter because about half way through the movie she leaves him for no real reason. He goes to leave and she says that when he gets back she wont be there, and that's that. What does that have to do with the story? Nothing at goddamn all. There's several little things like this throughout the movie... they don't do anything for the story, and in some places actually just seem to hurt it.

What does this picture have to do with anything? Absolutely nothing, but it's awesome.

That guy up there? That's our detective friend. He's investigating the murder of a sixteen year old girl. You know, when he's not having to deal with his shoplifting girlfriend. So while looking into this girls murder he discovers two things:

1) The girl goes to an all girl boarding school, along with her and her friends they have a secret little club called The Inseparables. All the sudden this movie got a lot more sexy.

2) The dead girl has a sister who's creepy. I'm not sure if she's meant to be, but I'll be damned if she doesn't seem that way.

Either way the dead girl's sister (who by the way doesn't seem all the broken up over the death of her sister, though neither does her mother) pops in occasionally throughout the movie with little hints and help for the detective. Because I hope that if a detective is looking into my murder he's doing so with the help of a ten year old... I hope it's a lot like Cop and a Half.

But don't worry, our detective doesn't rely solely on the help of a ten year old to solve crimes... oh no! You see, the detective is a loose cannon with unorthodox interrogation techniques! And by that I mean he takes one of the people he's trying to get information out of on a roller coaster ride. That's not a metaphor or anything, he literally takes him on a roller coaster ride. That's what gets the guy to talk. Seriously, I've seen Jack Bauer do things that are banned by the Geneva Convention... and this guy takes his suspects to the carnival. Maybe if he doesn't talk he takes them on the tilt a whirl.

Dammit, I get results!

Either way the story is kind of crappy. The plot is confusing with way too many subplots and unexplained things to make it even somewhat decent and the characters seem to do things that defy explanation. Maybe I got an edited version, or maybe it just didn't translate well to English. All I know is I got done with the movie and I know who killed the girl... I think... but I'm not sure how or why, and those things are kind of important in a murder mystery. It's like it started out well and then about halfway through the writers decided to get lunch. From about halfway through till the end just seemed like a convoluted mess.

Is it worth wasting 84 minutes of your life on? Probably not, but what else are you going to do?


3 Birthday Fish out of 5


Squid

How the Rating System Works

I thought I should specify how the rating system works, just in case you don't read the Mama Dracula review. Most of these movies that I will end up watching are going to be terrible. Not just terrible because of the bad acting, lousy productions, awful scripts, and horrible directing... those are all part of what makes them bad. What I've found generally with these types of movies is that you have all of those things, but you also have a movie that in the end is incoherent and confusing. Plot points not explained, new characters popping in with little to no explanation, horrible continuity issues, etc. It's things like that which take a movie from being bad to a movie being incomprehensible. A lot of those things popped up in Mama Dracula, like the Birthday Fish. I don't know why it's there, where it came from, or its purpose... but here it is. So instead of a lot of one star reviews I've decided to essentially rate there WTF?ness.

WTF?

If a movie is descent and watchable you're going to get one birthday fishes. If the movie is an awful mess that's probably not going to be enjoyed because it can't even be comprehended, then you're looking at a five birthday fishes kind of movie.

Hopefully this kind of clears up the rating system here at Bad Transfer Reviews. Just remember that here, one birthday fish is better than five birthday fish.

Squid.

Prime Time (1977)

FYI this movie is also know as American Raspberry.

Could it be? Could all the movies in this 50 pack not be as absolutely awful as Mama Dracula? Or have I just found the diamond in the rough?

I was pleasantly surprised with Prime Time, and it allows me to say something I never thought I would say in these reviews: not only did I enjoy this movie, I would actually recommend this movie. This is a vastly different from say Mama Dracula which I wouldn't even recommend to my enemies.

Prime Time is in the same vein as The Kentucky Fried Movie or Amazon Women on the Moon where it's essentially a movie, but with mostly a lot of skits. In Prime Time TV is taken over by... someone, I don't think they ever really say who and instead of your regularly scheduled programming you have some pretty hilarious, yet generally tasteless skits. Everything from the Supreme Court declaring that you can now abort children up to the age five or the pretty damn funny "Charles Whitman Invitational"



Like any of these movies the skits are hit and miss, but generally they're worth a chuckle. Also a lot of them are somewhat dated due to this being released thirty-three years ago. I would guess that a lot of kids nowadays don't even know who Charles Whitman is. Overall though it was pretty damn funny and had quite a few laugh out loud moments for me.

Normally while watching these movies I jot down notes here and there so I remember things for these reviews, with Prime Time I only wrote down about three things because I was actually enjoying the movie, it was actually funny and kept my attention. Prime time gets a 1 Birthday Fish out of 5 from me. It's actually worth seeing.


1 Birthday Fish out of 5

Squid.

Mama Dracula (1980)

I'm not even sure where to begin with Mama Dracula. Imagine taking a horror movie and crossing with a comedy movie, failing at both and then not telling your actors whether they're in the comedy movie or a horror movie. That pretty much sums up Mama Dracula.

Mama Dracula starts on a serious tone telling us the history of Countess Dracula (played by Academy Award winner Louise Fletcher) and how she ruled the countryside of Transylvania with cruelty, bathing in the blood of virgins to give her immortality. It then takes that somewhat serious tone and throws it right out the window and introduces us to Professor Von Bloed. Professor Von Bloed is a scientist who is trying to produce artificial blood... in what appears to be his basement.

Professor Von Bloed receives a letter inviting him to attend the "world blood congress" in Transylvania from Countess Dracula. Since I can only assume he spends a lot of time trying to make blood in his basement and doesn't have time to read books or watch movies, this doesn't send up any red flags. So Professor Von Blood boards a giant ocean liner and is off to Transylvania because apparently Delta doesn't have a hub there.

The Professor arrives and gets on a train, and this is where the movie take a giant turn for the WTF. This movie is set in modern time... and yet when the Professor gets off the train Transylvania it appears to be about the 1800's. For no apparent reason. It's not like accidentally got on the train from Back to the Future 3 and was transported back in time, because the rest of Transylvania is modern time as well. It's just this one village that appears to be stuck about 200 years in the past... and I'm not sure if it's ever explained, but they pop up inexplicably throughout the movie.

I could go on and keep explaining every single scene in this movie that makes no sense, but I really don't have the time so I'll just give you a brief synopsis.

Countess Dracula needs virgin blood, but in this day and age (the '80s) everyone is apparently a whore and there just aren't enough virgins to throw on the juicer so that she can bathe in their blood. So she hires Professor Von Bloed to synthesize virgin blood so that she can bathe in constantly.

Apparently before Professor Bloed came into the mix the Countess would get virgin blood with the aid of her two twin sons who look like they're wearing vampire Halloween costumes. They own a department store and when a virgin comes in to try clothes on they frighten her, she faints, and they haul her back up to the house so they can take all her precious, precious virgin blood. That's the plan, that's apparently how you get virgin blood.

Somewhere in this story there's a detective and his assistant (played by Maria Schneider) who are hot on the trail of whoever is kidnapping virgins, and by hot on the trail I mean the detective is more incompetent than Inspector Clouseau and Maria Schneider somehow manages to get herself kidnapped and imprisoned by the Countess.

And it all ends with a fashion runway show, Professor Bloed inviting artificial virgin blood, everyone having the option of becoming a vampire, and Maria Schneider marrying the two twin sons who up until this point I thought were gay. Yeah, makes perfect sense to me too.

There are little things here and there that I missed, but at the end of the day it probably doesn't matter because at the end of the day this movie is just plain awful. It wants to be a horror movie and comedy and fails at both. At the end of the day the movie is just too bad and too incoherent for it to be anything.

I really wanted to review this movie differently, I really did. I wanted to get a bit more in depth with this review... but I swear to God my brain just turned off about 3/4 of the way through. It had enough and wanted out. If I had to pinpoint the precise moment when this happens it would be at 57:13 when this happens:


I'm not sure what it is. From what I can tell is that it's some kind of fish that wanted to wish the Countess a happy birthday. That one picture pretty much sums up the movie for me.

Instead of stars I'm going to rate out of Birthday Fishes. 1 Birthday Fish being an okay movie that may actually be worth watching, 5 Birthday Fishes being an absolute mess of a movie. Mama Dracula gets 4 Birthday Fishes, and I hope not all of the movies are this bad.

Squid.

God Bless You Mill Creek Entertainment

Ever pass one of those bins that have DVDs for a dollar in them and wonder if the movies are any good? Or have you seen the 20 or 50 movie packs for $15 and wonder just how awful all those movies are? My favorite are the ones that advertise some big move star being in them; yes Robert De Niro is in The Swap, but there's probably a reason you've never heard of it. Me too.

I assume these movies are bad... but how bad? So bad they're good, or just so bad that there's no redeeming qualities at all. Every time I see these DVDs I always wonder.

I watch a lot of movies. I have a rather large DVD collection, and part of it is made up by these dollar DVDs. I always have a tendency to buy them because who wouldn't want to see a movie called Santa Clause Conquers the Martians? Or Mama Dracula. The problem is, I always buy these movies... but I never watch them. I have at least three of these 50 movies packs and probably thirty random dollar DVDs, but I would say I've watch maybe five of the movies. That's all going to change. That's right, I'm going to sit down and watch these movies and comment on every single one of them.

So get a comfy chair, grab some popcorn, and get ready for a whole lot of bad movies.

Squid.