True Blood Season 6, Episode 2

Like a burn victim removing his bandages for the first time, the second episode of True Blood’s sixth season peels back its plot to reveal a hideous, scarred mess of something that was once alive and vibrant. To fill you in on the plot thus far, Bill is Vampire Jesus, ‘Merica is at war with the supernatural, and a bunch of other stupid crap – we’ll let the nanobots fill you in on the rest. There are spoilers, if you really care about the “plot.”

• Rob Zombie’s cameo as the vampire who mantis claws his way in from another dimension. = +3pts 
• Rutger Hauer reveals himself to be Niall, Sookie and Jason’s “fairy grandfather.” This means no cheesy reprisal of Lothos from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. = -7pts 
• Fairy Grandpa Rutger Hauer admits to peeping in on Jason his whole life, commenting on his stash of “juicy porn.” = -4pts (For creeping us out with the imagery of an invisible Rutger Hauer watching Jason’s sexploits.) 
• When the magic bullet that downed Tara proves to be too hurty for Eric to yank out with his fingers, he instead gouges it out with a broken beer bottle. = +12pts 
• When Bill sinks into catatonia from his Civil War-era brain being overloaded by the pain of every vampire ever, he imagines himself wearing a purple sweater. = +2pts (For having immaculate fashion sense even in Imagination Land.) 
• Lilith is also in Imagination Land, wearing a gown so sheer that we can see her downy fluff. = +3pts 
• Arlene consoles Patrick’s widow by saying, “Life’s a shit sandwich sometimes,” after lying about her husband being murdered by a vengeful fire genie. = -6pts 
• After missing most of her shift at Merlotte’s, Sookie is so hell-bent to get to work that she nearly leaves a wounded man in a ditch. = +4pts (If only all employees had such dedication.) 
• Oh, he’s another goddamn fairy? Why is she taking him home?! Leave him in the ditch! = -8pts 
• We’re not sure if Lafayette was playing dress-up with Emma or just showing off his wardrobe. Either way, it’s fabulous! Why isn’t Lafayette Sookie’s fairy grandfather?= +10pts 
• Yet another character introduction – Nicole, an obnoxious pro-vampire activist who pulls the race card faster than [racist comments redacted] in order to guilt Sam about hiding his shifterism. -4pts 
• In Bill’s brain-space, Lilith single-handedly invalidates all non-Judeo-Christian religions by confirming that there is no god but God. Tough luck, Thor! = -6pts 
• Bill, while comatose, turns the nast-whore from Human Edibles into a meat puppet and sucks her blood out in a Legacy of Kain-inspired stream. = (+5pts for the meat puppet, -5 pts for the blood stream.) Total = +0pts 
• Proving that Bill isn’t the only character to develop super powers when the plot calls for them, Sookie lays hands on the handsome and mysterious ditch fairy and heals his wounds. = +2pts 
• Ben , the handsome ditch fairy , garners Sookie’s whorish glances with his ruggedness . At this point, we’re pretty sure that Sookie would make whorish glances at a rock with stubble painted on it. = +3pts 
• Andy Bellefleur shows up just long enough to say, “I don’t know shit about baby fairies!” = +6pts (See you next week, Andy!) 
• Fairy Grandpa Rutger Hauer dives into Warlo’s evil dimension and comes out dripping wet. Given that he appears in the next scene toweling himself off, we’re safe in calling it the Jizz Dimension. = -5pts 
• Pam’s Pepto-Bismol pink track suit. = -4pts 
• Eric proves himself a master of disguise by masquerading as a nerdy wildlife conservationist in order to glamour the hillbilly Governor. = +7pts 
• Hillbilly Governor reveals that the government has glamour-proof contact lenses and, despite just having revealed his secret weapon, calls himself a genius. = -9pts 
• “What the fuck are we eating spaghetti for!?” Jason exclaims upon hearing the news of Warlo’s escape. Clearly, when his dick is not involved, Jason Stackhouse confuses easily. = +5pts 
• Fairy Grandpa Rutger Hauer shows Sookie how to make a magic fairy supernova bomb guaranteed to kill any vampire. We hope that she uses it on Tara. = +3pts 
• Sam punches Alcide when he and his pack show up to take Emma. Alcide smiles off the blow and knocks Sam the fuck out. = +8pts (Sam deserves it.) 
• Alcide’s werebitch mollywhops Lafayette for trying to interfere. = -8pts (Lafayette doesn’t deserve it.) 
• Jessica prays to The One True God to bless all of her bestest friends, even stupid-ass Hoyt. = +6 heartwarming pts 
• Two more plot-significant secret powers are revealed to Bill – the power to turn on a TV just by waking up and the power to see the future. Will he see if this season gets any better? Find out next week! = +2pts

Final Score = +15pts
Season Score = +24pts

This episode takes away a vaguely Christopher Walken-looking Rutger Hauer vampire and replaces him with a Fairy Grandpa Rutger Hauer, gives Sookie the weapon needed to beat whichever bad guy reveals himself to be the baddest, and puts more emphasis on the Bill being Vampire Jesus. Also, more fairies. This is going to be a long season.

Score Technician: T. J. Geise

War of the Gargantuas

In War of the Gargantuas, scientists and the military race to discover why a giant, hideously deformed, green ape has suddenly risen from the sea and started to destroy Japan. Will they discover the answer? Well, sort of, because the film is apparently a follow-up to Frankenstein Conquers the World, all references to which were scrubbed from the American release, the only version currently available online. So let’s just provide this simple explanation: a chunk of a bigfoot-like creature (who, in turn, may or may not have been an outgrowth of a tiny piece of the heart of Frankenstein’s monster) finds its way to the ocean, where deep-sea radioactivity causes the chunk to mutate into a monstrous, evil version of the original creature. Makes sense, right? But how does it score?

• Giant squeaky rubber toy octopus…ATTACK! = +25pts 
• Forgetting to put baking soda in your toy boat in order to make a quick getaway. = -5pts 
• The Japanese have a saying: Out of the octopus tentacles and into the arms of Gargantua. = -7pts 
• Russ Tamblyn puts on an amazing performance as an actor who just doesn’t give a shit. = -15pts 
• See if you can spot the cameo by Rabelais, 16th century author of Gargantua, the satirical classic on which this movie was not based. = +2pts 
• Everyone throws the word “gargantua” around so casually. “Do you think it could be a gargantua?” “Could it be the same gargantua you nursed in your lab about five years ago?” “I can’t imagine a gargantua hurting anyone.” = -3pts 
• Baby Gargantua. = +10pts 
• For having every single scientist in the lab clustered around one microscope. = -5pts 
• Not running away the instant Gargantua peeps in through your 20th story office window. = -13pts 
• Dr. Stewart: Hey, remember that idea I had about there being two Gargantuas? That idea I just had 10 minutes ago? I just had that idea again. = -10pts 
• A lot of 60’s movies had horrible musical interludes, but this one…the words get stuck in my throat. = -23pts 
• When your horrible song is covered by Devo. = +23pts 
• Gargantua travels all the way to Tokyo and makes one stop, just to attack the singer of said interlude. = +20pts 
• Doesn’t finish the job. = -20pts 
• Cut to Russ Tamblyn, waking up in bed, remembering he’s in the movie, getting up very slowly. = -7pts 
• Gargantua hates tiny model tanks! = +6pts 
• OMG, setting up giant lasers takes forever. = -3pts 
• Fun Fact: in the electrocution scene, Gargantua’s dialogue translates as “Don’t Tase Me, Bro.” = +3pts 
• Electrocuting all of the wildlife in a river for the sake of snaring one Gargantua. Tokyo version of fishing with dynamite?= -7pts 
• No mountaineers ever noticed or reported the trails of smashed trees and deer that would have led them to the brown Gargantua. = -5pts 
• As of the date of this scorecard’s calculation, there is no satisfyingly disgusting result when typing “Brown Gargantua” into Urban Dictionary. = -10pts 
• From The Diary of Brown Gargantua: Dear Diary - I rescued my radioactive and emotionally disturbed offspring, Green Gargantua, today from electrocution at the hands of the army. He was distraught, making many bellows to the effect that he had been most affronted. I made profuse apologies, entreating him to attain succor in the waters of the mountain lake, but he remained sullen. I left him to his brooding and sought to clear my head of the day’s travail by briskly stomping through the mountain flora. I was midway through my perambulations when I happened upon a beautiful maiden who, much affrighted at my presence, fell off the side of a cliff. I rescued the poor creature, but broke my leg in the attempt, and was horrified to discover that this maiden was in fact a matron, the very same who reared me in the laboratory! I was aghast at the evil effects which my Gargantuan progeny must have had on her person - to drive her to the edge of mortality in terror! I fled in shame, back to the lake where I found the green fiend, nestled in my own favorite sleeping spot. This presumptuousness was at last too much, and I regret to admit that I smacked him in the torso with a tree. I fear that relations have soured between us. = +25pts 
• Meanwhile, back in Tokyo, they’ve installed a Gargantua siren! = +4pts 
• Casting tiny, tiny people. Oh, wait, that’s a split-screen effect. = -2pts 
• Akemi dropped, literally, as a doll into the subway. = + 5pts 
• For being 1966, when, God forbid they would show Dr. Stewart and Akemi developing a love interest, because – gasp – they’re two different races! = -17pts 
• All of the tanks are controlled by one button? Seems like a bad idea. = -3pts 
• Gargantuan sign language consists of two statements: “No!” and “But I’m doing the funky chicken!” = +12pts 
• For further reference to Gargantuan use of boats as weapons, see Jane Goodall’s Apes Ahoy: Aquatic Tool Use among the Greater Radioactive Primates (Muffaleto Press, 1969). = +12 pts 
• The monsters are destroyed by a volcanic eruption out of nowhere? What is this, Rodan? = -7pts

Total Score =- 15pts
Available on: Netflix streaming

Forgive us while we put the movie aside for a moment and fixate on Russ Tamblyn’s acting. We’re not professional actors, but we have enough experience to know how genuinely difficult it is to be as consistently non-committal to a role as Tamblyn is to the part of Dr. Stewart in this movie. Every line he utters is delivered in the same tone as that of a teenager who might look his teacher in the eye and nonchalantly say, “This class is bullshit.” Tamblyn was Dr. Jacoby. He was Riff in West Side Story. He knows how to act, which is what makes his performance here so fascinating. It’s not actually a performance. It’s Tamblyn deliberately saying, every single scene, “let’s get this shit over with.” Even the worst actors can’t help but betray some sort of effort at an emotional interpretation of the characters they’re playing; it’s in their natures to be emotional exhibitionists. An actor who just doesn’t care, who goes so far as to purposefully tamp down any hint of delivery in his lines is a rare and impressive beast indeed. Rarer than a radioactive gargantua.

Score Technician: Alex Pearlstein

True Blood: Season 6, Episode 1

The PCS puts the nanobots through their paces and asks them to perform calculations on a running television series (likely) on the decline, HBO's (semi)flagship show True Blood. How bad can it get? Who knows! The machines are smart but not smart enough to score the future, people!

But, before we get started, first some some background. Previously on (five seasons of) True Blood: Sexytime! Blood! Nudity! Sookie go fairy! Authority go Boom! Bill go boom! Sookie sad! Alan Ball gone!

• Naked Bill, covered in blood, intimidating a group of people by letting his chestnuts roast on an open fire and not even flinching. = +9pts (For giving yet another meanign to the term, Baller.)
• Blood bombing your hillbilly Governor for his stance on vampires—Oh, wait, we mean for his terrible “southern” accent. = +2pts
• Jason Stackhouse rightly redefining “glamouring” as “brain raping.” The most creative thing he’s done not related to his penis in five seasons. = +5pts
• Eating your boss, thus sealing your promotion. = Pre-economic downturn, -10pts; post-economic downturn, +10pts (A wash)
• This is the year Andy Bellefleur is outed as some kind of supernatural creature, thus explaining his uncanny ability to shed fat and add muscle every season, which continues to be the biggest expense in the F/X budget. = -3pts
• In a world full of murderous night creatures, sure, I’ll get in your car mysterious night traveler…even though you look a lot like Rutger Hauer after a 20-year bender. = -20pts
• Wait?! Rutger Hauer?! = +10pts
• Apparently, in human form, werewolves remain immune to poison oak. Especially on their junk. = +3pts
• Joe Manganiello displaying every known muscle on the male body…except a penis. = -9pts (Say it ain’t so, Joe!)
• We wish conservatives in this country would mature as fast as these damned fairy babies do. If so, we could have blown through slavery AND the Jim Crowe south by the time Lincoln got whacked. = No score, just a wish.

Episode Score = +9pts
Season Score: +9pts

One episode into the season and, per usual, we have no real idea where this show is going. But at least we’ve been able to confirm that Joe Manganiello has the genitals of a Ken Doll. At least that mystery has been resolved.

Score Technician: Sean McConnell

Max Payne

Many of us were chronically un- and under-employed during the year or two following the release of Max Payne, the video game. So we attained a level of intimacy with Max Payne’s story of violence, addiction, betrayal, violence, loss, isolation, violence and violence that some might find … disturbing. And thus, it is with mixed excitement and trepidation that we approach the task of scoring Mark Wahlberg’s venture into noveau-noir in the film adaptation.

Here are our findings.

• Max tells us he believes in pain. Also fear. And death—he believes in death. = +12pts (For establishing the movie’s tone instantly.) 
• The cop giving the rookie a tour is Dennis Franz, only cheaper. = +3pts 
• Max opens bathroom-stall doors with bullets. = +6pts 
• The drug dealer is David Paymer, only cheaper. = +7pts 
• Every criminal in Not-Gotham City has a drug addiction that makes them hallucinate homicidal bird-monsters, then die. = -5pts (+20 in 1983; -25 in 2013) 
• Max’s ex-partner is Donal Logue, only chea—nope, that’s Donal Logue. = +12pts 
• An answering machine? In 2008? This movie, like Billy Pilgrim, is unstuck in time. = +10pts 
• Ludacris(!)plays a detective named “Bravura.” Because, y’know, all those Italian plantation owners. = +18pts 
• How many Not-Gotham City cops does it take to break down Donal Logue’s office door? All of them, for some reason. = +15pts 
• We don’t know how big a gun it would take to make Mila Kunis intimidating, but that one’s not even close. = -4pts 
• Max Payne’s rented storage locker almost certainly houses the Ark of the Covenant. = +10pts 
• Oh, his wife and child were killed on Christmas. We thought a bit more melodrama was needed. = +20pts 
• We can finally make a decent gluten-free pizza crust, but our best super-soldier formula drives 99% of test subjects insane? = -10pts 
• “Valkyr gives you wings!” So it’s like Red Bull, only more homicidey. = +15pts 
• There’s a way to win a machete vs. shotgun fight. Using the shotgun as a club is not it. = -25pts 
• Sending Max to “sleep with the fishes.” You can’t beat the classics. = +10pts 
• Putting the super-soldier formula in the protagonist’s pocket BEFORE you weigh his feet down. = 10pts 
• Max kills the mastermind, the uber-villain, the Final Boss … with one bullet. Fuck you, movie. = -50pts 
• So the lady that’s president of the big corporation is the real villain? Sequel? Hold on, where’s our shotgun. Allow us to club you with it. = -5pts 

Final Score: = 29pts
Available on: TBS at 3:00 AM on a Tuesday. Probably.

We believe in pain. We believe in fear. We believe in death.

And we believe in watching better movies. Max Payne is a film that you will forget in a Not-Gotham minute.

Score Technician: John Ormond

Summer Hours

Look, we get it. It's warm outside. The sun is shining. You've got "better" things to do than to sit in front of your computer and read a bunch of dick jokes about b-movies. There are kites to fly, long walks to take, inline skates to skate upon. That's why we at the Progressive Cinema Scorecard will be scaling back operations for the summer.

EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY: The PCS is moving to a Tuesday/Thursday publishing schedule for most weeks. The exceptions will be that, at least one Friday a month, we'll be bringing you new Celebrity News Updates, and for special theme weeks (coming soon: Video Game Week!), we'll still do three or more posts.

So get out there and enjoy the great outdoors and and squeeze every once of passion out of those summer flings. We'll be here waiting when the weather gets shitty again.

Celebrity News: Police Investigate Kelly Family in Wake of Funeral Incident

Hip-hop producer Jermain Dupri and members of the Kelly family are facing charges of improper disposal of human remains following the Irish wake of former child-rapper Chris Kelly at the Jackson Memorial Baptist church this past weekend.  

Kelly, best known as one-half of kiddie rap duo Kriss Kross, was recently found dead in the doorway of his Atlanta home, from an apparent drug overdose. Despite many quotes, tweets, and texts from family members, “It was drugs!” “Bitch was high!” “Playa liked to jump, motherfucker!” police haven’t ruled out the possibility of homicide.

“We learned a lot from Biggie and Pac,” said Atlanta police Chief Biff Hagerty. “People aren’t so cool with letting semi-famous black people die without an investigation. Not like they used to be anyway.” Many have cited the rapper’s penchant for wearing his clothes backwards as a reason for the prolonged investigation. “You have to be real careful in situation like this,” the sheriff continued, “With reversists, it can be difficult to tell whether or not they were going to the bathroom or running from a home invader. That’s something they don’t teach you on CSI!”

With the investigation still ongoing, various members of Kelly’s family and entourage arrived at the wake expecting to remember and celebrate the life of a young man gone too soon. They were ill-prepared, however, for the ensuing scene of horror that was described by rap mogul and Kriss Kross producer Jermain Dupri as “Fucked up.”

“I claim no responsibility for this whatsoever,” said Irish mortician Paddy O’Hannigan, as he puffed on his fishtail pipe. “I did my duty. If the family doesn’t want to listen to me, then by Mary let it be on their heads!”

Tensions in the funeral home were reportedly running high due to the family’s insistence that Kelly be displayed backwards. “It was such a big part of who he was as a performer,” said Kelly’s mother. “I just wanted to see my baby as I remembered him, when he was happiest.”

The altercation broke out when Kelly’s body was transferred to an old rocking chair for a traditional Irish wake. “To be honest, I didn’t even know he was Irish,” said one family member. The suggestion was reported to have originated with Dupri who, by his own admission, can never resist a party, especially one he was “paying for.”

“Look, laying him in the casket facedown was bad enough,” said O’Hannigan. “We had a lot of extra holes to plug as a result of that stipulation, but taking the lad out and sitting him suit out in a rocking chair, face-to-back? That was unconscionable.”

When O’Hannigan refused to seat Kelly in his chair, Dupri and members of the family took matters into their own hands. “Look, I used to do this shit all the time with my G.I. Joes,” said Dupri. “How was I supposed to know he’d fall apart like that?”

A cousin of Kelly, who wished to remain anonymous, described the situation, “At first it seemed like a good idea, but then the noises started... The snapping of wires and bone. And then…he started leaking. It was like watching somebody melt from the inside out. He just…deflated.”

“At that point there’s not much to be done,” O’Hannigan said, as he graciously cleaned up this reporters vomit after showing him the dark, unwashable spot in the church’s rec room carpet. “In a way, my job isn’t so different from Kriss Kelly’s. Care for the deceased is its own bit of reversal. I take things that are dead and turn them around so that, for a brief moment, they appear alive again. What you want is for people not to look too close and see the death. And you sure as shite don’t want them to touch, bend, crack, and twist it.”

In a press conference later that week, Jermain Dupri, speaking to a room of local bloggers who still vaguely remember who Jermaine Dupri was, summed up the events thusly before breaking down: “Look, Atlanta is the city where players play. We ride on these things like every day. Kriss Kelly knew big beats and he hit the streets. He saw gangsters roaming. He didn’t need to go out like that. That shit was nasty.”

Reporting Technicians: Sean McConnell
Photo Technician: Maya Mackrandilal

House

It takes a lot to build a House. We’ve always found that it’s best to start with recognizable television stars and build out from there. Thankfully this was still the case in 1987, back when Hollywood would look to save a few bucks by filling a movie with TV guys. So, when some producer was given a script about a Lovecraftian House full of demons, he figured it would be better if it starred the guy who couldn’t drive his alien spacesuit, the retarded bailiff from that show about the magic judge, and the drunk at the end of the bar who hates his wife. Good call, Hollywood! You know sometimes you do get it right. So, how does a movie about a former Vietnam vet/worst father of the year, who retires to his aunt’s portal to hell fare when run through the machines? Let’s find out!

• There's nothing more terrifying that the shot of a house…during the middle of the day. = +2pts
• Background shot for opening crawl is straight out of an intro to film class, complete with shaky camerawork and average white kid. = -2pts
• Having a character named grocery boy in your movie and a scene where he calls out, “It’s the grocery boy!” = +7pts (#youknowyoureinahorrormoviewhen)
• Grocery boy’s reading of the word “sick” as he looks at the aunt’s disturbing demon rape paintings and not knowing whether he means it in a good or bad way. = +5pts (Score could change depending on when “sick” changed to mean “awesome.”)
• “I should wander deeper into this house. I have groceries!” = +4pts
• This scene would be completely different with a porno soundtrack. = No points just a recommendation for the inevitable remake.
• THE GREATEST AMERICAN HERO!! = +10pts (Come to think of it, that’s a pretty bold statement coming from a guy with spatial orientation issues and the worst TV fro ever.)
• People who read books are the real terror. = -9pts (In 1987 = -3pts, In 2013 = -6pts)
• Does anyone still film scenes where characters walk down the sidewalk and have conversations and the director makes the “creative decision” to put the camera at ground level so that you see more blurry cars than acting? Was acting that bad in 1987? Or could you not get a film permit? = No points, just a mussing.
• Being better at acting like your friends are in your apartment to make an ex-wife jealous than actual acting. = +3pts
• Real men in the ‘80s used a microwave to cook their lonely meals. Once again proving the ‘80s notion that the idea of men cooking is stupid (See: Bachelor Party). Our evidence: Lead tosses box and all into the microwave before nuking. We rest our case. = -1pt
• Having a dream in which you imagine your son being lost in a jungle in ‘Nam. = +6pts (This is getting deep.)
• Filming that scene in a forest somewhere in Maine. = -2pts
• A checkered marble hallway floor leading into a hardwood dining room? Carpet on the stairs and various bedrooms? Who designed this house, The Joker?  = +5pts
• Taking Checkov’s “gun” analogy and raising it a harpoon gun. = +3pts
• Ignoring the advice of a real estate agent to sell the house after he almost shoots your face with a harpoon and his only response is to say, “Oh, geez. Sorry about that.” = +10pts (Balls, man. Balls.)
• Same real estate guy calling all your family belongings “junk.” Pretty classy, real estate man. You’re hired! = +5pts (For being honest.)
• “I just saw the ghost of my dead aunt hang herself after telling me the house made her do it. I really should go to bed in my missing son’s bed. I am a normal person.” = -5pts
• Rocking the deepest v-neck sweater we’ve ever seen...without an undershirt. = +4pts (In any decade.)
• NORM! = +10pts
• “Hi, I’m your creepy neighbor who’s going to slag on your crazy dead aunt—wink, hopefully someone put her out of her misery—and, by the way, I just happen to have a copy of one of your books in my pocket despite us never having met before.” = +4pts (For always being prepared.)
• BULL! = +10pts
• Remember back when Vietnam looked like a soundstage in Burbank? These vets do… And they’ll never forget…. Ever. = +2pts
• “You know what, closet, I feel like a pussy in this v-neck. I’m going to go brush my teeth and put on an ever deeper plunging robe. If there’s anything behind this door, my immaculately smooth chest should protect me.” = +2pts
• Responding to a monster from the closet trying to eat you by hella shopping on Amazon. Items purchased include: body armor, helmet, goggles, eight video recorders and tripods, harpoon string, boots, and guns. Wait? Not one fucking gun? WTF?! This is America, Goddammit! = -2pts
• The scary closet monster was one thing, but this cray cray fish nailed to the wall warrants a gun for realz. = +2pts
• Shooting prototype Billy the Bass twenty years before we had a chance to. = +5pts (For predicting the future. And still being worth it.)
• “This house must be haunted. Quick, let’s get back inside!” = +4pts
• Attempting to prove you were attacked by a demon by dramatically baring your immaculately waxed chest, and—we’re sorry, you were saying? We got lost in your eyes. = +9pts
• Shooting your ex-wife with a shotgun. Wait, we mean demon. We think… = No score. Nanobots still calibrating.
• We hope Sam Raimi is getting royalties for this movie.  = -3pts
• Unironic use of the song “You’re No Good” to accompany the montage of dismemberment and burial of ex-wife demon. = -2pts
• Flirting with a man who is obviously burying a dead body (of some kind). = +6pts (Feminisms!)
• Showing up at his house later that night with your child and watching the same man abscond with your child into the restroom without any real explanation, watching the child emerge with said stranger crying, and deciding to leave him with the same man to be babysat. There are two options here for young Bobby 1)His mother is a huge whore or 2)She found this kid on the porch and panicked. = +5pts (Bad parenting always makes for great plot complications.)
• “Man, this house is full of demons. Young Billy should be okay here while I unearth the trauma of my experiences in Vietnam.” = -2pts
• Giving a kid who is not yours a bath without asking his mother/whore first. = -10pts
• Not killing your best friend during ‘Nam so that he could later be captured by the Viet Cong and tortured. = -3pts
• Deciding to write a book about it later to make some money and prove to people you’re a serious writer. = -6pts
• Call us cowards, but if it were our son Jimmy and we had fallen through our medicine cabinet, had our shotgun stolen by a flying demon bat, and emerged in Vietnam, we’d have said, “Fuck it.” = +10pts
• For a guy whose previous credit was playing a superhero who couldn’t land, it’s no wonder it took him multiple attempts to rescue his child from the clutches of a demon house. = +10pts (For never giving up.)
• Telling your returned long dead demon best friend that you would have died for him, and when he basically says, “Sure, now’s good,” slamming the door in his face. Fool us once, shame on you. Fool us twice… = -5pts
• Tearing your demon vet BFFs arm off and beating him with it. = +10pts (Bad. Ass.)
• Demon reattaching his arm and kicking the Greatest American Hero's ass with it. = +15pts (Badder. Asser.)
• So you were the last person who saw your son before he “mysteriously” disappeared and several years later you emerge from that same burning house with your son and everybody’s happy? Yeah… = -10pts.
• “Therapy, Jimmy? Ha! Why, I happen to have your mom/my ex-wife right here! See, Daddy didn’t shoot her with a shotgun, which is a decision he's no longer regretting given the suspiciously positive outcome of this whole endeavor! See those lights there? Those are policeman! They’re likely responding to the fire at the house. Or, quite possibly, the inappropriate bath I gave to young Billy earlier. Trust me, once they understand that I was only washing him to remove the any evidence of the demon hands that were groping him, we’ll be able to resume our normal lives. Your mother can dump that asshole she was fucking, and I can do more fatherly things around the house. Like tossing an entire box of fish sticks into the microwave! Who knows, maybe when they’re done cooking, we can pour ketchup over the box and watch FullHouse as a family.” = +10pts (For Hollywood being Hollywood.)

Total Points: +116pts

Available on: Netflix streaming, Amazon Prime Instant Video, In the closet of a man wearing Sam Rami's skin

For a film that relies heavily on Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead films for its notion of horror/comedy, House does have some concepts worth exploring. What on its surface is a film about a writer looking to settle down and write his memoir, quickly turns into a film about the legacy of trauma, both political (Vietnam) and personal (failure at parenting). William Katt is solid as a likeable guy who has a very dark secret. George Wendt provides some solid comic relief, but, given the legacy of Cheers, feels underutilized as Katt’s skeptical neighbor/fast-friend. It’s too bad that the movie lets the wind out of its own sails by hyper-Hollywooding the ending, thus deflated any real impact (or real horror) the movie may have had. 

Score Technicians: Sean McConnell and Maya Mackrandilal

Troll 2

The nanobots have noshed on plenty of prime specimens of schlock cinema since we first launched the PCS, but only one has earned the distinction of “the best worst movie.” Written and directed by Italian filmmakers with a tenuous grip on English and starring an all American cast of unprofessional actors, Troll 2 was bound for greatness from the start. So strap in, boys and girls, we’re about to delve into a sequel that wasn’t meant to be a sequel, and a troll movie with no actual trolls. Let’s see how this cult classic measures up to the under The Scorecard’s scrutiny.

• For shamelessly trying to capitalize on the runaway success of the Troll franchise. = -20pts 
• Hey, dude getting chased by goblins, why not eat that lime pudding being offered to you by a strange girl in the woods? = -4pts 
• So, the vegetarian goblins force their victims to eat magical food that turns humans into plants for the goblins to consume. We’re probably not the first ones to point this out, but wouldn’t it save a step or two to just eat regular plants? = -70pts 
• That opening prologue (in which a terrified young man was turned into a plant and devoured by goblins) was a bedtime story? We’re guessing Joshua’s grandfather doesn’t get asked to babysit very often. =-8pts 
• Never mind, the grandfather is a ghost. That makes it totally acceptable. = +16pts
• Sweet Brian Boland Joker poster in Joshua’s room, though. = +7pts 
• Actual line of dialogue between Dad and coworker over the phone: “Can you take care of that business for me while I’m gone?” = -12pts 
• For their vacation, the family is “trading houses” for a month with some people they’ve never met. We’re curious about how many Nigerian princes these guys have shared their bank account with since entering the internet age. = -21pts 
• Sister Holly apparently has a condition where she can only speak at ear-splitting volume. = -50pts 
• “Hey, obnoxious teen boyfriend Eliot, I just got through explaining how my family can’t stand you…Now why don’t you accompany us on a month-long trip to the middle of nowhere.” = -14pts 
• …And then he doesn’t show up. = +15pts 
• Oh, wait yes he did. In a Winnebago full of “high school buddies” who might be in their 30s. = -30pts 
• To diffuse the animosity between Holly and her father, Mom asks Joshua to sing a song. Because nothing puts people at ease in a moving vehicle like the sound of a ten-year old singing. = -23pts 
• The song that Mom “likes so much” is “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.” We’re suddenly very curious to get a peek at her record collection. = +11pts 
• Mom’s version of performing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” as a round is to just blurt out random lines from the song at haphazard intervals while her son is singing. = +17pts 
• In his efforts to save Joshua and his family from the goblin threat, Spectral Grandpa delivers him into the hands of an insane drifter. = +20pts 
• Joshua’s face looks like he’s constantly trying to take a shit. = -22pts 
• The family they’re trading houses with left a cursed goblin brunch laid out as a welcome. = +2pts (That’s what we call down-home country hospitality) 
• Family decides to continuously pass the cursed brunch plates in a circle in lieu of actually eating. = -9pts 
• Spectral Grandpa freezes time so that Joshua can dispose of the meal. If most of us had to find a way to stop our family from eating a cursed goblin brunch, we would probably flip the table over or maybe sweep all the food onto the floor. Joshua’s solution? Piss over all of it. = +40pts 
• That awkward ten seconds where it looks like the dad is going to piss on Joshua in retaliation. = +10pts 
• When even the hapless victims in your monster movie aren’t afraid of your monsters. = -45pts 
• Arnold, the 32-year old high school senior and random encounter female victim seek refuge in the home of Credence, the goth librarian. = +1pt 
• Every muscle in Credence’s face seems to be working independently of the others. = -14pts 
• Holly’s dance. Wow. = -70pts 
• Elliot lying shirtless in bed with his friend: suddenly we have a whole new perspective on his lack of interest in Holly. = +6pts 
• General store stocked with nothing but room temperature milk. = -3pts 
• Nilbog is “Goblin” spelled backwards! Just one of too many parallels with The Shining for this to be a coincidence. = - 12pts 
• Hapless teen victim Drew re-enacts my favorite scene from Anchorman. = +30pts 
• Reverend Kenny Rogers delivers a sermon on evils of meat. = -3pts 
• We feel like watching that scene where the townsfolk try to force-feed Joshua ice cream has landed us on some kind of federal watch list. = -32pts 
• Actual line of dialogue: “We need time for some things to happen.” = -9pts 
• Actual line of dialogue: “Look what a surprise they have prepared for us!” = -16pts 
• Nothing sets us at ease like a bunch of strangers standing around in a circle, clapping and watching us eat. = -14pts 
• Spectral Grandpa with an axe. = +10pts 
• Severing the goth librarian’s arm has also given her a wicked case of the herp. = +4pts 
• Single greatest exchange in this (or any other) movie:
  GRANDPA: We must move quickly to put out the fire.
  JOSHUA: What fire?
  GRANDPA: *Pulls out Molotov cocktail and smiles* = +50pts 
• “No, honestly, officer, it’s okay. My dead Grandpa told me to start the fire. You know, to kill the goblins.” = +13pts 
• Awfully sporting of the goblins to give the family time to slowly edge back into the house. = +2pts 
• Fragasso’s direction to Credence during her seduction scene: “No, no! Sexier! That’s it, twist your shoulders more. Good, now drag your fingers across Brent’s face like you’re drunkenly trying to read braille! Perfect! This is turning me on.” = -13pts 
• This scene. This fucking scene. = -75pts 
• Spectral Grandpa smiles like a retarded person whose just shit his pants. = -8pts 
• Backpack full of bologna that Joshua receives from his grandpa a subtle metaphor for how each generation inherits the false values of their ancestors. = +12pts 
• Kids, if your grandpa ever tells you to touch his Stonehenge magic stone, run and tell another responsible adult. = -19pts 
• Goth librarian’s catch phrase is apparently a protracted, warbling shriek. = -100pts 
• Hey, remember all that stuff about destroying the goblins with the power of goodness? Well, jk, they’re all still alive and somehow followed you guys back home to the suburbs. (And, holy shit, is that the Mom’s tit underneath all that bright green vegetable sludge? = -13pts

Total Score = -463pts
Available on: DVD, PETA’s propaganda file

A new Scorecard record. While any attempt to crown a particular film as “the best worst movie” is bound to be arbitrary and subject to individual opinion, however you figure it, Troll 2 is waaaaaay up there. The plethora of WTF moments will reel you in, but it's all the little things--every wooden piece of dialogue, every tone-deaf line reading, every cheaply constructed costume--that will keep you coming back again and again.

Score Technician: Joe Hemmerling

Creepshow 2

Just about every kid with even a dim memory of the 1980s was, at some point in his life, terrorized by Stephen King and George Romero's EC horror comics tribute Creepshow. But did you know that the same horror movie power-couple that brought us that classic reunited (sort of) five years later to rekindle their black magic wit Creepshow 2. Neither did we! Until now...

• Being a sequel to an actually good scary movie and keeping the EC Comics motif. = +10pts
• Giant balls on the tween who does not run away screaming at the sight of the obviously demonic periodical man. = +5pts
• The writer who wrote that above line. = -10pts (To be applied to a personal scorecard.)
• Really lame "magic hands" move of creepy periodical man. = -3pts
• Lack of star-power evident in the opening credits. A complete reversal of Hollywood's view that the original Creepshow was a good idea and a movie to be seen in. = -10pts.
• Exact opposite of creepy synth/keyboard solo during credits. = -5pts
• Not being directed by George Romero. (Despite what the poster art would have you believe.) = -8pts
• Utterly terrible between story animation sequences. = -5pts
• Opening scene of old white man singing "Jimmy Crack Corn" while dusting off a giant Indian Smoking man in front of his store. (In 1987 = 0pts, In 2013 = -17pts) = -17pts
• Old white lady making fun of freeloading (really poor) Native Americans. (In 1987 = +1pts, In 2013 = -20pts) = -19pts
• The look of confusion on the white guys face at receiving turquoise necklaces in lieu of cash. = 0pts (But kind of hilarious.)
• The dialogue. = -3pts
• The "You're disgusting" line uttered after obnoxious wailing fat guy grabs his crotch and tells the old man to "put this in your mouth." = +8pts
• Unintentional (one hopes) Diet Pepsi appearance at awkward moment. = +2pts
• HOLY FUCKING SHIT THAT IS FUCKING IRISH ACTOR HOLT McCALLANY PLAYING THE LONG HAIRED NATIVE AMERICAN ROBBER. (In 1987 = nobody gave a shit, in 2013 = -20pts) = -20pts
• Poorly dealt issues of race this movie thinks it is treating with respect. (In 1987 = +5pts, In 2013 = -25pts) = -20pts
• Ability of previously petrified Smoking Indian to operate contemporary technology, like televisions and garage door openers. = +7pts
• Telling the petrified Smoking Indian covered in blood that he is not alive and can't be alive and then wasting time shooting him. = +3pts
• Troubling implications of Smoking Indian scalping another Native American as revenge for killing white people. (In 1987 = +10pts (Irony!), In 2013 = -20pts (Racist!)) = -10pts
• Yes, I'm still here not-scary-cartoon-man. It'll take more than a little 80's cultural insensitivity to get me to stop watching this clearly inferior sequel. = +10pts (For doing me the courtesy of making sure I'm still awake.)
• Um...spoke too soon. The Raft freaked our shit out bad when we were kids and is one of Stephen King's best stories. = +20pts
• Douchbag teens yelling at each other to "pass the weed." Oh, these kids can't die fast enough. Already much better. = +5pts
• The blonde douchbag's hilarious yellow bikini bottoms. (Likely a joke in 1987 = +5pts, In 2013, still a joke, but funnier in 2013 = +8pts) = +13pts
• Here's a great idea for you: Drive 50 miles out into the middle of nowhere, take a swim in what looks like an abandoned rock quarry, and leave your car back on the "beach" with the keys in the ignition and the radio still blasting. What could go wrong? = +15pts
• Watching duck be mysteriously pulled into the water and still swimming in the general direction of it. = +5pts
• Who took a shit in the lake? = +3pts
• DON'T TOUCH THE SHIT IN THE WATER!! = +10pts
• Killing the virgin girl first. = +15pts (You know, because it's not typical in these kinds of movies... Not because it's cool to kill virgins...)
• Threatening to punch a girl who is upset after watching her friend dissolve into a glop of lake poo. = -5pts
• Foot-to-face. Best. Raft. Death. Ever. = +25pts
• Um...non-consensual molestation while a a pervy slick of acidic poo watches. = -20pts (in any decade)
• Taunting slick of acidic poo. = +5pts
• Poo wave!! Who's laughing now, beyotch! = +10pts
• There's nothing like the smell of a rich white lady running over a homeless black man in the morning. = -10pts
• Car phones with actual cords attached to them. = (In 1987 = +10pts, In 2013 = +15pts) +25pts
• Refusing to give a ride to the black man you ran over with your car even after he's managed to track you down several miles later. = -5pts
• "Thanks for the ride, lady." = +5pts (Still makes us laugh.)
• Now we know where Quintin Tarantino got the inspiration for Django Unchained. = +3pts
• Why would, what clearly appears to be a zombie, after being mutilated, suddenly fall over after getting shot a few times by a gun? = -2pts
•  Accidentally run over a homeless black man, once? Shame on you. Purposely shoot him six times and then run over him again, repeatedly? Well..shame on you again. (In Regan's 1987 = +10pts, In 2013, -20pts) = -10pts
•  Overallpoints to be earned through unarftful commentary of important issues relevant to 1987. = 0pts (a wash)

Total Score = +17pts
Available on: Netflix streaming, the quarter bin at Graham Crackers Comics

Once again the scorecard proves that the closer to 0 a movie actually is, the less value there is in literally watching it. Had this movie not had The Raft at its center, and had it not been chock-full of shoehorned metaphors of a dead decade, it might have been not bad. But, as it is, it is not good.

Score Technician: Sean McConnell

Alucarda

Alucarda, a film by Mexican filmmaker Juan López Moctezuma, tells the story of young Justine and Alucarda, two young women who, after the quickest/creepiest meet-cute in the history of film, become possessed by Satan and proceed to carry out a bunch of hilarious pranks on the nuns and priests in a remote Spanish village. Hilarity abounds! Well, at least that’s what artist/critic Pedro Valez said to us when recommending that we have the nanobots crunch the numbers on this cult classic. Let’s take a look at the results:

• Any film directed by a Mexican director with a last name Moctezuma has to be bad for white people. You have been warned. = +10pts (Because white people suck.)
• Opening production montage full of luchadora masks, sharp-toothed demons, hot she-devils and random Japanese writing. Basically, Lou Dobbs’ version of your average Mexican Quinceañera. = +6pts (Because Lou Dobbs is racist.)
• Being a gypsy baby born in a mausoleum somewhere near Fraggle Rock cemetery. = +4pts
• Sending your newborn baby off to a convent before you’ve wiped it clean of bloody placenta. = -2pts
• Horses maintaining nominal speed despite horseman’s vigorous “Hi-yah! Hu-ha’s!” = +2pts (Fuck you, ape!)
• Nuns dressed as bloody mummies. Spanish Catholics are weird. = -2pts
• Remembering the ‘70s: When all the women in movies sounded like they worked for L’oreal Cover Girl. = +4pts
• Pay no attention to your creepy roommate who’s been sitting in the dark staring at the wall the entire time without comment. She’s a bitch. = -2pts
• If your roommate’s idea of getting to know you involves showing you a handful of chiggers and claiming that you (both) are two sides of the same coin, move out. = -2pts
• Remembering the ‘70s: When women used to frolic through the woods, laughingly fall into each other’s arms and roll down a grassy hill in Sapphic delight, right before running into the local dinner theater’s lead Rumpelstiltskin. = +8pts
• No, hunchbacked Rumpelstiltskin definitely has your best interests at heart. You should follow him deeper into the woods he claims are overrun with demons. = +5pts
• Oh, he’s a gypsy! We’re good. It’s just a racist director. Whew! = -7pts
• Overly complicated Rube Goldbergian steps to a process that will supposedly…um. Uh, not matter at all later. = -2pts
• Swearing a blood pact with a woman you met (maybe) one hour ago. = +3pts
• Did someone order a priest for exposition? = -8pts
• One bloody Jesus on a cross: Normal. One hundred bloody Jesuses (Jesi?) carved into the walls of an underground tomb/church: Excessive. No wonder all the ladies are crying. Nobody’s getting out of there alive. = -2pts
• We’re not sure if Alucarda is possessed by the devil or trying to get Jimmy Hendricks to notice her at Woodstock. Same thing, really. = +3pts (According to Joe’s Mom)
• We’re not sure what’s happening to the audio now, all we know is that someone is definitely making fart sounds into the boom mic. = +8pts (For perfectly introducing French New Wave cinema to Mexico.)
• Man, gypsies sure make crackerjack heist people! = +5pts
• Calling for thunder and instead getting lightening. = -5pts
• Going from unspectacular flower girl possession to full frontal nudity in less time than it takes a gypsy to call for more thunder and take your top off. = +3pts
• Clearly this gypsy does not know what to do with a naked women. To be fair, neither do we. = No score. Just observation of a fact.
• We wish we could tell you that a hunchbacked gypsy serving as the facilitator/conduit to a three-way with two naked chicks was hot. It’s not. It’s just creepy. = +5pts (Because this is a horror movie. We’re supposed to be unnerved.)
• Two naked women. One of whom is way more into licking the blood off the mouth and boob of the other one. What many people would call college. = +4pts
• Trying to make rape seem sexy. = -10pts
• Apparently, Satan is big on orgies. He must watch a lot of Tru Blood. = -3pts
• “Hey ladies, don’t mind the obvious goat mask. I’m just here for the orgy. To prove it, how about I bring in some wang. We good?” = +9pts (1 point for each wang.)
• We know who the real villain in this movie is, wet-blanket nun who cries blood. We’ve seen Casino Royale. = -2pts (For ruining our orgy buzz.)
• “Hey ladies, I know we were all a bit wigged out about all that bloody rain and orgy sex/sacrifice last night. Let’s all just pretend it never happened. Just like it says to do in the script. Now, for a passage from Matthew 3:1Exposition.” = -8pts
• Oh yeah, we’ll counter your God-Exposition with our Devil-Exposition and raise you a pair of boobs. = +4pts
• Grabbing your priest’s junk during confession. = +9pts (In any decade.)
• Remember when leeches were used to cure possession? Neither does science. = -3pts
• “Hey, guys. Look, I know the demons won that first round. Let’s all have a good scourging and strategize how we’re going to win this thing! Who’s with me! Catholicism!” = -1pts
• Spanish Catholic priests apparently have the power to read books with the palm of their hands. Baller. = +3pts
• Masking exposition by disguising it in a scene that plays like a 1st grade reading class. = -8pts (FAIL)
• We’re not sure if this priest is quoting the Bible or John Carpenter’s back catalogue. = +2pts
• “Hey, who left the door open so that the demon girl could crash the exorcism?! Goddammit, Rodrigo, when are you going to learn to do your job!” = -2pts (Fucking, Rodrigo.)
• Dr. bitching about having to do his job just because it’s early in the morning. = -2pts
• Okay, we’re not sure if the priest is beheading that burned woman because he thinks she’s possessed, or he hates women. It’s a toss-up, really. = -5pts
• “I’m a Doctor, goddamit! Nobody can exposition like I can!” = -8pts
• Taking a bath in your own blood. = +10pts
• Bitch slapping the shit out of the nun who interrupted you before you rip her throat out with your bare teeth. = -5pts (That’s just mean.)
• It’s like we always say, sometimes you fight fire with a dead nun propped up like Jesus. We hope Kirk Russell is taking notes. = +9pts
• Naming your movie after Dracula spelled backward and then having nothing to do with him or vampires. =  +5pts (For sticking it to teenage girls.)

Final Score: +32pts
Available: Netflix DVD, Guillermo del Toro's foot locker...of screams!

So, um, yeah…that was a lot of screaming. Now that our hearing has returned, it should be noted that, for a cult director, Moctezuma appears to have a hard time escaping the fundamentalism he seems intent on critiquing. While his film successfully toes the line of dogma and sacrilege, its final message of “(insert: lesbianism, sex, thinking, questioning, women) are bad because the church makes us feel bad about them” is defeated by relying on that same dogma to, in effect, save the day. Still, that the final “twist”—that Jesus could be a chick if need be—is somewhat progressive, if not ultimately shallow given the way in which woman are largely portrayed But, man oh man…there sure was a lot of screaming.

Score Technician: Sean McConnell

Puppet Master

1989 was a fantastic decade for cinema. From it came timeless classics such as Batman, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The decade also ended with some Scorecard-favorable films such as Heathers, Vampire’s Kiss (Coming soon!), and, as you are soon to read, Puppet Master. This film launched B-movie maestro Charles Band’s career in making movies about murderous toys (up to and including Dollman). On your mark, get set, Scorecard!

• We feel that more movies should start with a puppets-eye view. Wait, there are how many Puppet Master movies now – eleven? Never mind. = +3pts
• On second thought, how is no one noticing a panting doll running underfoot? Do they think that he’s a well-dressed albino dwarf? = -3pts
• William Hickey makes an excellent choice as a creepy old man who enjoys nothing more than to make creepy dolls and creepily talk to them. = +7pts
• The jarring puppet movements are unsettling to behold. = +11pts
• Germans talking without subtitles. = +2pts
• Rather than be captured by dirty Nazis, William Hickey blows his jellied brains out all over the wall. William Hickey Suicide sounds like our favorite post-punk noiserock band. = +4pts
• Psychic Pat Sajak has a dream that he’s attacked by leeches. That’s what he gets for watching Stand By Me before he takes a nap in his office chair. = +3pts
• A young woman is told by a fortune teller that she’ll work in a shopping mall – as a good thing. = +9 pts in 1989, -18 pts in 2013. = -9pts
• For the sake of the reader, we’re very glad that a machine that detects psychic fantasies only exists in straight-to-VHS horror films. +5pts
• For a movie called Puppet Master, a plot involving psychics with bad hair getting together to have a psyche-off in an old hotel doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. = -6pts
• Oh, the puppets are trying to kill them for some reason. That makes more sense, we guess. = +6pts
• The psychics are attending an open-casket wake of a colleague. In an old hotel. = -7pts
• According to the Mystical Dipstick, the corpse is a quart low on psychic energy. = -4pts
• “Screwball,” the maid says after witnessing, through a keyhole, the fortune teller retrieving and petting a stuffed Pekinese from a suitcase. = -3pts
• According to the sexy psychic couple, “experiencing the past” involves seeing the most ferocious of rape faces. = -8pts
• Now the sexy psychics are reliving hot movie star fucking between Clark Gable and Carole Lombard. = +5pts (It would have been higher if we could’ve watched some ‘30s missionary action.)
• The female lead decides to wear her grandmother’s tablecloth to the fancy dinner. = -7pts
• Uncomfortable sexy shrimp eating. = -2pts
• When a psychic says, “Don’t go near the fireplace,” you should probably listen. = +6pts
• The maid didn’t listen and is predictably whacked by a beefy puppet. = -4pts
• When Sexy Psychic Wife gets off in a bathtub, Sexy Psychic Husband sees fit to put nylon over his face and scare the living daylights out of her. = -6pts (Trust us, that level of foreplay doesn’t work at home.)
• The puppet with a drill on its head kills Sexy Psychic Wife in a predicable fashion and the lady puppet vomits leeches onto Sexy Psychic Husband to suck him dry. The symbolism is so thick that not even Ash Williams could chip it with his chainsaw arm. = -13pts
• The corpse from the wake shows up in the fortune teller’s room. Her solution is to perform hoojoo with her Pekinese. = +3pts
• The burly puppet gives one unforgettable Indian burn! = +6pts
• The well-dressed albino dwarf puppet’s spring-loaded knives-for-eyes seem to exist merely as a surrogate for another spring-loaded thrusting instrument. = -4pts
• The female lead wakes Psychic Sajak up and takes him to the attic so that he may watch her dance to carnival music. Oh, it was only a dream! = +3pts
• You’re still dreaming, Psychic Sajak, unless those really are the severed heads of your friends sneering at you from under your blankets. = +7pts
• Using a cat statuette to prop up a hook light. = +2pts
• The corpse really isn’t a corpse at all, but the film’s true antagonist. While wearing a cabana tie, the villain explains at length how he used William Hickey’s puppet master mystery magic to turn himself into an evil immortal. = +4pts
• The villain pauses his merciless pummeling of Psychic Sajak to scowl at the spinny-faced jester puppet and snap, “What are you looking at?” = +12pts (For being a dick to two characters at the same time.)
• When the puppets turn against their evil immortal master because of the above dickery, a raucous brawl breaks out.  The villain is eventually overpowered, maimed, and then brutally murdered by his little buddies. = +6pts 
• Psychic Sajak, why are you trying to stop the puppets from murdering the bad guy? That guy just beat the shit out of you scant moments ago! = -9pts
• The best use of the evil immortality magic is, of course, to bring the stuffed Pekinese back to life. Happy endings for everyone (except the ones who are dead)! = +11pts

Final score = +23pts
Available: DVD, beneath your really creepy uncle's floorboards, Joe's porn stash

Despite the shambling plot and phoned-in performances, Puppet Master does have its entertaining moments thanks to the puppets, each of which is unique in a “Buy Our Action Figures” sort of way. Even so, as the later films have shown, putting more focus on the puppets isn’t necessarily a good thing. If the idea of a film about puppets killing psychic friends appeals to you, then by all means watch this movie. Be sure to bring a Scorecard, so that you can feel like a true prognosticator by predicting how lukewarm your film experience will be!

Score Technician: TJ Geise