Pages: 1 2 3 Next page »

All glory to Ted V. Mikels! This man has had an illustrious career in shitty horror movies. He is the major creative force behind such legendary films as "The Astro-Zombies," "Mark of the Astro-Zombies," and "Blood Orgy of the She Devils." He also produced, directed, and co-wrote the original "Corpse-Grinders." Twenty-eight years after he made that last masterpiece, Ted V. Mikels decided there was still another story to be told in the dark and gritty world of chopping up dead bodies to make cat food. Yes, he had left some stones unturned. Now was the time to rectify the mistakes of the past. By now I'm sure most of you have seen "The Corpse-Grinders," but for those select few of you who have yet to treat yourselves to that masterpiece, allow me to summarize the plot: two guys decide to make cat food by grinding up human corpses. They become very successful and encounter such memorable characters as an unscrupulous gravedigger and his meddling wife, and a snooping doctor and nurse. Soon, all the cats in town that eat this food develop a taste for the gamy tang of human flesh and start attacking their owners. It's a lame premise, to be sure, but at least it's a premise. In "The Corpse-Grinders 2," Ted V. Mikels takes the plot of the first movie - and I mean the exact plot of the first movie - and makes one crucial change. Instead of all of the cats in town going berserk, they don't! Get it? It's genius! Also, Mikels adds a new element to this already incredibly plausible and realistic story - cat people from space. Mikels, you nut, you've done it again!

One of signature visuals of "The Corpse-Grinders 2" is the grinder itself, a clanky contraption of rotating blades and numerous pointlessly flashing lights. You know you're in for a quality film when the power switch for the grinder is clearly labeled "HITACHI CAMERA POWER UNIT." That's bad news, right there. And that's literally only the second shot of the movie. You have to wonder why Ted V. Mikels would even bother including that shot, when it's nothing but a straight-on view of the power switch. My only guess is that it's his way of saying, "Look, I can't even make it ten seconds without fucking up, don't expect 'Schindler's List.'" After the lameass title screen, which you can see above, we transition into a shot that has opened classic films from "Star Wars" to "Star Wars" - text scrolling into the distance that explains the background of the story. The thing is, in "Star Wars," that text is necessary, since it explains background information that would take a huge chunk of time to act out. In this movie, most of the information contained in the text is actually explained later on in the movie, rendering the text totally useless. In fact, some of the text is directly contradicted by the events of the movie and contains obvious typos. But since it saves me the trouble of explaining this all later, and since it's enough of a joke in itself that I don't have to come up with anything else funny to say about it, I will now recreate that text for you in its entirety with its original spelling and punctuation:

IN A GALAXY MANY LIGHT YEARS AWAY THERE IS A PLANET CALLED CETA ITS INHABITANTS EMULATE THEIR ANCESTORS, THE CAT-WORSHIPPERS OF EQYPT AND ATLANTIS. THERE IS A SHORTAGE OF FOOD AND WATER ON CETA AND THE CAT-PEOPLE STRUGGLE FOR SURVIVAL AGAINST THE ELEMENTS. THE DOG-PEOPLE OF THE NEIGHBORING PLANET TRAXIS WAGE WAR AGAINST CETA AND HAVE PLANS TO INVADE

So the inhabitants of the lost city of Atlantis had the technology for space flight on the colonization of other planets and they left Earth for Ceta, right? I assume the people of Eqypt, which is probably close to what we call Egypt, never made it off Earth, since the cat-people only ever mention their ancestors from Atlantis. Now doesn't it strike you as just a bit of a coincidence that out of all the planets in the universe, the cat-people decided to colonize the one that was right next to a planet of dog people? I mean, that sort of sounds like they were just asking for trouble. And if the cat-people had interstellar technology centuries ago, why the hell are they struggling for survival against the freaking elements now? Call me crazy, but I would imagine that a species capable of colonizing a new world would be able to master the advanced technology known as the rain slicker. And if the planet is nearly depleted of all of its food and water, why would the dog-people of Traxis want to invade? Wouldn't they just be getting a planet that can't support life? Also, if it says in the text that Ceta is running out of food and water, why do the cat-people never mention a need for water ever again in the movie? Seriously, they just search for food. The whole water thing never comes up. Hey, wait a minute! If there's no water, exactly what elements are the cat-people struggling against? The transition metals? Other than those points, I have no issues with anything brought up in the text. I do, however, have an issue with the incredibly stupid-looking burst effect used to make the text disappear once it has all scrolled onto the screen.

Oh man. That's just... oh man.

I think there may have been some sort of misunderstanding between Ted V. Mikels and his crew about the meaning of the word "special" in the term "special effects." We see a dogfight (pardon the pun) between the ludicrously dumb-looking dog-aliens of Traxis and the degraded, pathetic cat-people of Ceta in CG spaceships that would make Steve Oedekerk vomit out his ears. Every time we see a cat-person up close, they are wreathed in crappy lens-flares that serve no purpose other than to distract the viewer from the utterly humiliating appearance of the cat-people themselves. I'd like to find out how much the actors got paid to portray cat-people in this movie, because then I would actually know just how much human dignity is worth. The cat people look and talk just like normal people, only they all have to wear some manner of headband or other headgear that some huge, ridiculous ears have been attached to. From pointy, fleshy ears to big, round, fluffy ears, it is apparently illegal on Ceta to have ears that are any smaller than the rest of your head. To put it succinctly, everyone on Ceta looks like an idiot. Even the children, who all show their adulation for their cat-gods by wearing T-shirts with pictures of a cat head on them. Those are the ones I really feel bad for. You can at least be sure that the adults are all doing this of their own misguided free will. There are a few kids on Ceta who are clearly the children of the adult actors. You just know that the adults said to their kids, "How'd you like to be in a movie?" I somehow doubt they actually said, "Hey Billy, how would you like to be in an unbelievably terrible movie with a forty dollar budget and wear stupid cat ears and a moronic T-shirt that all of your friends at school would pound you into sawdust for wearing?" And what advanced society would force their children to wear T-shirts to remind them who their gods are? I mean, I know some people wear T-shirts with references to Jesus on them, but they're hardly standard issue. You don't see Hebrew schools handing out T-shirts with pictures of Yahweh's face silk-screened onto them.

So all the good little cat-people congregate in some sort of official room, where their leader, Borath (say it with me, "Borath") relays the bad news that the war effort against Traxis is stinking more than a litter box after a month with no cleaning. He doesn't actually say that, mind you. That was me being witty. He does, however, say that they have no food and are essentially boned. That's when Felina, the official cat-woman in charge of the Department of Being Able to Speak and Move At the Same Time (a department which is sadly underfunded on Ceta), says that she has learned of a planet called Earth which has a similar environment to Ceta and could have usable food. Allow me to speak for everyone, everywhere, ever when I say, well no shit, earface. Your people came from Earth. Of course you know about it. Didn't you read the scrolling text a few paragraphs ago? Still, everyone treats this discovery of Earth like it is the greatest thing since Iams. Borath, Felina, and their technical officer Fat Guy embark on a mission to Earth to return with a ship full of food. Surely, one ship full of food will be enough to feed the entire planet for centuries to come. Hooray! Fat Guy is sure to note, however, that while Earth people "may not fight dinosaurs, they are very territorial." Uh... what? Are those the only options? Be territorial or fight dinosaurs? I'm confused, angry, and gassy, and we're only five minutes into the movie.

We turn our attention to Earth, homeworld of Frito-Lay quality snack products. There, Landau, nephew of one of the co-owners of Lotus Cat Foods from the first movie, is going through the Lotus office for some reason. Apparently, in the twenty-odd years since the place went out of business, the office has fallen into horrible disrepair. And by "horrible disrepair," I mean a chair has tipped over and a lame plastic shield has fallen off the wall. Good thing the young, go-getting Landau is able to fix all that. As he does so, he comes across a carefully hidden (read: on a shelf) folder containing his uncle's secret formula for cat food (read: chop up corpse, serve room temperature). He shares this find with his partner, Maltby, a wormy guy whose uncle was the other half of the original Lotus Foods. It's tradition in the pet food industry to pass your business on to your nephews, you know. It's true. Well, okay, it's not, but it's the best explanation I can come up with for why these two schlubs ended up in charge of the company. In any event, the two of them have no qualms whatsoever about the whole digging up dead bodies and chopping them into cat food thing, so they agree to go into business as equal partners.

McBride, the CEO of Lotus Cat Foods (who is also well-versed in the Book of Wormy), pays a visit to Professor Mikoff, an oddly-mustachioed scientist who specializes in the field of science. Mikoff, who is played by none other than Ted V. Mikels himself, is engaged in an experiment which, I swear to the cat-gods, consists of watching dials and listening on headphones while an annoying fake animatronic bird tweets "Mary Had a Little Lamb." I've seen some movie scientists study some odd things in my time, but no matter how hard I try, I just can't figure out why in the sweet name of fuck anyone would want to study a fake bird that would go for $5.99 at the Christmas Tree Shoppe tweeting "Mary Had a Little Lamb." What benefit could this possibly have to mankind? That sort of experiment can't even pass off as pointless. It's too elaborately weird. Ted V. Mikels must have had some sort of point in mind when he put this scene together. Are we supposed to think the bird is real? If so, has the professor taught it to sing "Mary Had a Little Lamb," or are we supposed to ignore the tune and assume he is just studying the pitch and meaning of a bird's calls? Because I'm only willing to stretch my imagination so far, and I basically hit my limit back at the cat-people. Anyway, McBride asks Mikoff to contribute some capital to help Lotus get going again. Mikoff answers every question with doubts and qualms, which McBride interprets as yes, which is good since that is apparently how the professor intended them. Much confusion is felt by all.

Now that they have their capital, Landau and Maltby get to work. The first thing they do is hire some qualified employees, by which I mean some homeless bums they find getting drunk on the street. They're ugly, totally unqualified, and have serious hygiene issues, but they'll work cheap, so they are all hired on the spot. I'm sure they all have names, but the only important one is Tim, an old man who is hired to be the building's caretaker and to watch over the cats that Landau and Maltby have around for some reason. He may not be wearing gigantic ears or a stupid dog mask, but Tim sacrifices just as much of whatever dignity he had to begin with as anyone else in this cast. He spends the entire movie singing and babytalking to a bunch of cats and simpering in front of any actual humans he has to interact with. It's just sad to see a fully grown man acting like a baby nonstop for an entire movie. It makes that thing rise in the back of my throat. You know... that thing... what's it called? Ah yes, the urge to kill.

Professor Mikoff is out for a bike ride when he happens to be in precisely the right place in precisely the right time to be the only person to witness the cat-people's ship landing. Actually, what he witnesses is one of the worst CG crimes against humanity since "Cool World," but he recognizes it as an alien spacecraft because, you know, he wrote the movie. Luckily, he just happens to have his a full compliment of Acme Science Stuff with him, so he sets up an impromptu observatory to monitor the spacecraft. He doesn't seem any more excited about the alien ship landing than he does about, say, his freakish pointed moustache. He just plops himself down and starts watching. He's only there for a moment, though, before he is grabbed from behind by two men in black suits, who order him to accompany them. They take him the the headquarters of ASTAPP, the agency for Awareness Suppression To Avoid Public Panic. Mikoff, it seems, once worked for ASTAPP, and now they want to know what he knows about this alien spaceship. When he is brought before a table full of ASTAPP officials, Mikoff tells them that he saw a being exit the ship. He didn't actually, but whatever. The ASTAPP committee thanks him for telling them all he knows, which he didn't, but whatever. I mean, he didn't tell them what the being he supposedly saw looked like, or anything about the ship's landing which only he saw, or anything like that. This is clearly one of the government's top organization.

At the local hospital, nurse Angie complains to her boyfriend, Doctor Howard Glass that their cat, Kitty, won't eat her food. She proves this by giving the cat some food, which it doesn't eat. Yes, that's right, she feeds her cat right on the floor of the fucking hospital. On behalf of medical patients everywhere: buh? What hospital in the world would ever allow the staff to bring their goddamn pets into work. Angie has the cat slung over her shoulder as she walks down the halls, and this is a mangy, scruffy beast we're talking about, here. You can't bring a cat into a freaking video store without breaking a health code, I somehow doubt they're okay in hospitals. In any case, Angie pampers her cat with so much affection that you have to stop and wonder just how useless of a human being she must be to pay that much attention to the cat and not notice how badly it needs to be brushed. Howard is a whiny asshole who first gets moody because he thinks Angie pays more attention to the cat than to him, then gets moody because she won't screw him right there on the hospital floor. A real couple of winners, right here.

Pages: 1 2 3 Next page »