This site is no longer active because I have way too many other websites to run to dedicate any extra time to this one, BUT I've decided to turn Hardly Clerkin' into a semi-regular column over on my personal website, RichHowells.net. So if you want to read more, head on over there and check out some of my other stuff as well.

I had a woman come up to the counter a few weeks ago and ask me for Baby Mama. Begrudgingly, I directed her to where that piece of shit was on the shelf. When she came back, she handed it to me and asked, quite plainly, “This movie isn’t about gay people, is it?” “You mean is it about two lesbians having a kid together?” I asked, confused. “Yeah…I just can’t stand that. It’s not like that, is it?” I looked the woman up and down. She was clearly a black woman…possibly had a little Latino in her. Of all people, it continues to amaze me just how much the black community denounces the gay population. I immediately wanted to respond, “Well, I hate any movie with black people in it, so I totally get what you mean.” I don’t, but the reaction would have been priceless.

“No, it’s not about a gay couple. Why would it be a problem if it was?” I couldn’t help but ask. “I just…eww,” she shivered, a disgusted look on her face. While my job requires me to treat everyone respectfully, I couldn’t help but shoot the same disgusted face right back at her and roll my eyes. If you’re going to be a bigot, fine – I can’t stop you from being an ignorant prick. Just don’t try to force your ignorance on complete strangers. I’ve had to ask people to leave the store for using racial epithets to protect your sorry ass from getting offended – this is no different.

Every year for the past four years, I’ve been treated to a new and entertaining horror film every October in form of the Saw franchise. Fans and trolls alike can argue where the films “started to go downhill” or which movie they found to be the strongest or weakest, but up until this point, I have defended each one as a worthy and legitimate entry in this exceptional series. Then I watched Saw V last night. While I found it difficult to narrow this down, these are the top five reasons that Saw V sucked hard and broke Jigsaw’s winning streak. (Yes, there are spoilers…but if you haven’t seen it yet, just read this and save yourself $10.)

5. David HACKl is a fitting name.
So I’m a Lionsgate executive. My company was put on the map by a little independent film called “Saw.” It blew up into a multi-million dollar franchise. I’m in charge of hiring the crew that will continue making me millions of dollars. Instead of re-hiring one of the past directors of the series or seeking out a director who has at least one or two movies under his belt, I think I’ll go with the guy who has never directed a full-length feature film before and has worked on such blockbusters as Skinwalkers and Cybermutt. Was this asshole the boss’ son or something? At least the other sequel directors tried to emulate James Wan’s style…David Hackl figured, “Why bother? We’ve already got your $10!” I’m not saying that he had to hyper-edit the shit out of it, but he could have at least made it look better than a cheap TV production. He couldn’t seem to drag a decent performance out of any of the “victims” (“Survival of the fittest my ass!”), and even Tobin Bell looked as bored as I was. The only real torture in Saw V was the terribly slow pacing and total lack of anything visibly interesting. Every director of these movies so far has, at the very least, given us at least one suspenseful, creepy, gross, or disturbing moment. With this movie, we got a rejected CSI episode, but at least those only amount to 40 minutes worth of suffering.

4. The FBI fails worse than a fat guy stuck in razor wire.
Since when did the FBI become as inept as the Bush administration? One guy walks away from Jigsaw’s traps unscathed, while another has a self-inflicted wound in his throat, and Strahm is the guy they suspect? Agent Strahm is the worst detective since Inspector Gadget. After letting his partner die by walking into a trap, he listens to the warning on the tape, looks at the clearly marked door, and decides, “Fuck it, I’ll take my chances,” ending up in, of course, another trap. He survives, but can’t let his suspicions go, so after being dismissed from the case, he walks right back into FBI headquarters and steals all the classified files he needs without any clearance problems whatsoever. At the very least, don’t you think there’d be a sign-in sheet or keycard clearance that’d prevent him from getting that far? A curious night watchman who would ask him why he’s not on vacation? A security camera wouldn’t be filming this theft? The FBI also wouldn’t recall confiscating Strahm’s cell phone as evidence, even though that sort of thing must be clearly logged, and no camera or security guard would see Hoffman snatch it, either. They also don’t bother to clean up crime scenes, so it’s easy for anyone to walk right in and check out Jigsaw’s handiwork. (There’s a lawsuit waiting to happen.) FBI agents always talk to themselves out loud when solving a case, by the way, because apparently the writers felt that the beat-you-over-the-head-with-it flashbacks wouldn’t be enough for audiences to “get it.” I get it just fine, guys - you really suck at this “plot” thing. Keep working on those Feast sequels, though…they’re much more your speed.

3. Admiral Ackbar has seen better traps than this.
There are already fanboys across the internet defending this unworthy sequel, saying that the Saw movies aren’t about gore, but about the intricate plotlines, so if you come out of Saw V disappointed by the lack of gross-out moments, you’re not a real fan. Well guys, I’m a big supporter of the first four, but I have to go with Iron Man on this one – “Is it too much to ask for both?” Sure, the first Saw really didn’t have that much gore, but the centerpiece of the film was a guy who had no choice but to cut off his own foot with a rusty hacksaw…it’s about the gore, too. The brilliance of these movies was that they balanced the blood and gore that horror fans craved while simultaneously giving us a story deeper than your average slasher film could deliver, and each movie took the last one’s gore up a notch. There are rules to producing successful sequels, and we all know what happens when you don’t follow the rules. It’s simple, really – without directly copying the others, take what audiences loved about the previous movies and give them more while still progressing the story in a logical and meaningful direction. Instead of talent, we get excuses – “They needed more time to develop the plot.” “They already did all the traps that they could.” “They needed this movie to set up the next one.” The only trap they successfully set in Saw V was baiting audiences into dropping $10 to see this rushed piece of shit. I would have gladly waited another year for them to develop a better script. A group of people have to work together and figure out how and why they are related to survive…sorry, but I already watched Saw II. The buzz saws? Nothing compared to a pit of dirty needles or a device that will twist each of your limbs off one by one. The pendulum trap that makes you crush your hands, even though there’s no way to escape anyway? Kinda sounds like the harness trap in Saw III, where Kerry had to put her hand in a jar of acid, only to find that there was no way to escape anyway. If you’re going to steal from other movies, try not to steal from movies in the same series. And while you’re at it, give me something a little more painful than electric shocks to an already dead body. Was I also the only one who noticed how lazy Hoffman was in comparison to John? Those taped messages were about as enigmatic as a word search in Highlights magazine. If you’re going to hire Goofus to produce this shit, don’t tell me that if I squint enough, he looks like Gallant.

2. Hoffman is no Jigsaw.
Any true fan knows that Jigsaw is the real star of this series. Maybe you pretend to root for the “victims” when watching it with your friends, but deep down, you know that you want them to suffer for their crimes just as much as your self-righteous hero does. You still get chills every time he cryptically speaks through Billy the puppet, and you listen intently every time he goes off on one of his “value your life” speeches. Saw III and IV gave us the backstory we needed to justify our sympathy for this crazy old bastard, and then they go and kill him. Amanda may have been a crazy druggie bitch, but at least her character was interesting to watch as she tried to fit into Jigsaw’s mold. Hoffman, on the other hand, has a very boring, cliché origin involving his sister’s murder at the hands of her boyfriend, and he has no personality whatsoever. In the scene where Hoffman is being held at gunpoint, his only response to Jigsaw’s poorly-written dialogue is “Fuck you,” and that’s exactly what I have to say to every Hollywood executive who didn’t let this series die with John Kramer.

1. “You won’t believe how it ends!” Are you sure about that?
Oh trust me, I knew how it was going to end – you were spelling it out in big, bold letters for me the entire fucking movie. We watched Hoffman set up Strahm for over an hour, so there’s no shock there. We already saw a group of people who didn’t play well with others in Saw II, so there were no surprises there either. I actually sat there and dismissed every obvious instruction in Hoffman’s tapes because I was anticipating that big twist – it really can’t be that simple, could it? We didn’t get our “A-HA!” moment…hell, we didn’t even get our “Meh” moment. All we got was a, “Really? It’s over? That’s it?” And while that was certainly unexpected from such a unique and fascinating series, I doubt that sinking feeling of disappointment was really what the tagline meant.

Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer is a movie that seems to be splitting horror fans down the middle. On one hand, the movie is a clear tribute to the Evil Dead films and other B-grade horror in the same vein, but on the other, it only delivers on the “monster slaying” in its last 20 minutes or so. So is this movie worth your time? Let’s weigh the good and the bad before I answer that.

On the top of the good list is the film’s style. Director Jon Knautz did not use any CGI – just good ol’ fashioned make-up, prosthetics, and puppets brought Jack’s monsters to life. Considering this movie had next to no budget, I give the filmmakers a lot of credit for not stooping to cheaper CGI effects just to add a few more action sequences. Jack is a fun anti-hero that’s easy to get a kick out of when he frequently loses his short temper, and the cheesy stock supporting characters are present to move his story along. Like a superhero film, this first movie in a planned series spends much of its running time on Jack Brooks’ origin of a cowardly plumber who channels his built-up anger to become a badass creature killer, so it certainly can’t be bashed for not developing the protagonist – something the horror genre is famous for. You get to like Trevor Matthews in the role pretty quickly, and Robert Englund (a.k.a. Freddy Krueger) is totally believable (and hilarious) as Jack’s possessed science teacher. If you’re a fan on Englund, it’s worth seeing just to watch his struggle with an evil heart that decides to use his body as a host – for an old guy, he certainly hasn’t lost any of his eccentricity.

Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer does have its flaws, however. While the movie isn’t necessarily long, the pacing makes it feel that way sometimes because you’re expecting a good fight scene to pop up at any moment, but it doesn’t deliver on the action until most of the movie is over, and he only slays a handful of baddies at that. Since it is a throwback tribute film, it does lack a lot of originality, and it’s often too predictable to be really engrossing. Some great one-liners would have balanced that out, but our hero sadly lacks the campy wit of Bruce Campbell and other B-movie actors that have made a career out of their catchphrases. But when you consider that this movie was a lot of big firsts for everyone involved, from the writer to the director to most of the actors, you can see that there’s a lot of potential for this series to progressively improve…although if you just paid $15 for it, you may have wanted a little more than promises to develop a better movie next time.

Overall, I’d say Jack Brooks is a renter, unless you’re a big fan of the genre and just crave some good old school horror/action. If the next few Jack Brooks movies really deliver, then I’ll probably pick this one up for my collection, but for now, I’ll reserve my judgment. Anchor Bay has delivered the goods when it comes to horror DVDs many times before, so I’ll be keeping my eye out for more…as long as they don’t release 20 special editions of this fucker, as they’re also known to do.

A lot of good movies die quick, but miserable deaths at the box office. That's why the term "cult classic" was invented - most of these "classics" weren't thought of in such high regard during their original theatrical runs. Your average moviegoer just sees whatever "big" movie came out that week, even if they're not particularly thrilled about seeing it, simply because they figure that it's the safer bet. If they're going to drop $10 or more for only two hours (or less) of entertainment, they assume that "the one that everyone else saw" must be worth their time. This lemming-like logic forces unconventional films like Fight Club to bomb and hopefully find an audience on home video, which, thankfully, that movie did. Despite the increasing popularity of Chuck Palahniuk's books and the rabid cult following that Fight Club created, it has taken nine years for another adaptation of Chuck's work to hit theaters, and while Fox is distributing Choke pretty well for an indie movie, it's not exactly playing everywhere. But if it is playing in your area, see this fucking movie. I went opening weekend and was not disappointed. Whether you're a fan or a newcomer just looking for a good dark comedy, you will laugh your ass off, I promise you that. I even liked it better than Burn After Reading, which I also enjoyed. Choke is the heartwarming story of a sex addict struggling to pay for his crazy mother's medical bills by conning rich people who rescue him from purposely choking to death in restaurants. Take the whole family!

While this post may just seem like a big advertisement, I'm seriously not getting paid a dime to mention this - I'm just sick of seeing shitty, cookie-cutter movies like Eagle Eye make bank while original, well-made films like Choke struggle to pull in a few bucks. And the better this movie does, the less time we'll have to wait for another of Chuck's adaptations to get made.