Corvette Summer

Plucky young, wrong-side-of-the-tracks teen Kenny Dantley (Mark Hamill) inspires his high school advanced auto-shop class to rebuild a junked Stingray into a foxy fine, candy-apple, metal flake, flames up the side, custom Corvette, that promptly gets stolen. Following a wild lead to Vegas, our hero teams up with teenage prostitute Vanessa (Annie Potts) to hunt down the car he loves so unnaturally well. It was the Summer of ’78. It was hot. It was dangerous. It was partly cloudy with a slight chance of precipitation in the evening. It was: a Corvette Summer.

• In Empire Strikes Back, Mark Hamill unknowingly kisses his sister. In Corvette Summer, he knowingly kisses his mother, a bit too long, on purpose. = -20pts 
• What do you call a haircut that’s all mullet, front and back? Is there such a thing? Mark Hamill rocks it. = +6pts 
• Trying to establish a character’s loneliness, but only establishing creepiness, by having him wander around watching random couples kissing. = -3pts 
• Who the hell shot this thing? Too much glare on screen! Oh, wait, our blinds are open. = -2pts 
• Giving your underage shop student alcohol at night, alone in a dark garage. = -10pts 
• Not knowing the difference between wine and scotch. = -3pts 
• Having the balls to build on the premise that a high school shop class could have raised enough money to customize the bitchin’est disco-tastic hot rod the screen has ever seen. = +25pts 
• You let Danny Bonaduce drive your car and you’re surprised that something bad happened to it? = -12pts 
• Is “I don’t want no Cokes!” the most ironic line Mark Hamill delivered in the ‘70s? = +12pts 
• Things that happened everyday in the ‘70s: Being picked up while hitch-hiking by a promiscuous young woman driving a tricked-out love van, complete with waterbed. = +20pts
•  Discovering that the young woman has the whiny voice of Annie Potts. = -7pts 
• We think Toby Maguire based his Fear and Loathing hitch-hiker on Mark Hamill in this movie. = +8pts 
• Discovering an old junk yard full of giant Vegas casino signs. = +7pts 
• Telling a kid who gets thrown, shirtless, out of a hooker’s van, “I like your style!” = +13pts 
• Mark Hamill’s Corvette Summer, a.k.a., the summer he didn’t wash his hair. = +5pts 
• Every time you felt the bittersweet pang of love in the ‘70s: French horn solo! = +6pts 
• Mark Hamill springs naked out of the top of a van, sings “Love is a Many Splendored Thing.” Somewhere, across the universe, a tiny, moldy alien twirls its wee claws and says, “Yes! YES!!!” = +20pts 
• Mark Hamill’s mother moves without telling him, plays practical joke by leaving behind the burnt out shell of her trailer, a couple of charred mannequins, and some Jawa carcasses. = -3pts 
• Let’s pause here to honor and appreciate the Internet’s “Unofficial Corvette Summer Website,” complete with multimedia such as screen captures from a VHS recording. = +12pts 
• Escaping from car thieves by busting a window and then hiding in a barrel full of oil when you could have just EXITED THROUGH THE WINDOW YOU BUSTED. = -17pts 
• 1978 – The last year people living in parking lot vans weren’t afraid to open their doors in the middle of the night to anyone who knocked? = -3pts 
• A Theremin is introduced into the score – this does not bode well. Head back to the French horn, Kenny! Remember the French horn! = -2pts 
• So, Kenny makes $850.00 a week working with car thieves. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Inflation Calculator (not made up!) that’s $3,249.01 per week in today’s dollars, which means he’d be making $168,948.52 non-taxable dollars per year. In other words, fuck our current jobs, we’re becoming car thieves! = +10pts 
• Worst apology for beating someone with a chain, ever: “Hey man, I’m real sorry about that thing …you know, with the chain thing. Sorry about that.” = +7pts 
• When Brion James, the guy who played Leon in Blade Runner, looks at you like you’re freaking him out, you might have a coke problem. = -6pts 
• Once again, Kenny demonstrates his intelligence by having access to the Corvette, all night, by himself, with the shop keys, and deciding to wait around until morning so he can throw hammers and spanners at the bad guys instead of just taking off with the car. = -13pts 
• Kidnapping your girlfriend, involving her in a potentially fatal car chase, driving her to a different city where she doesn’t have any spare clothes, money, a place to live, or a car. = -22pts 
• Sure, Kenny could have returned the Corvette to the high school shop and handed the keys to the principal, but it made more sense for him to drive the car up to the front steps of the school and break the fire alarm. = +3pts 
• Well, Kenny, you didn’t send any of the bad guys to jail, or kill them, and they know your name and where you’re from, so, um, it was good knowing you, Kenny. = - 1pt

Total Score = +30pts

Available on:Amazon, TCM (some Tuesday, 2 a.m., in your future)

Watching Corvette Summer, we realized that most Hollywood coming-of-age movies aren’t actually about growing up, they’re about perpetuating adolescent fantasies of what it will be like to suddenly become an adult. Let’s take another Mark Hamill film – oh, let’s say Star Wars, wherein becoming an adult means accepting that you have magical powers, blowing up spaceships, and saving the galaxy. In Corvette Summer, doing the adult thing has something to do with having the guts to steal your dream car and wooing the heart of a prostitute. Both of those scenarios are pretty awesome, but do they prepare us for the real world? It’s no wonder American males are so screwed up. The night we turned 18, we didn’t get Jedi powers or even get laid - we found ourselves puking in the bathroom of a Boston pizza parlor, and what suddenly spewed onto the floor sure wasn’t adulthood. We suggest that coming-of-age movies not be rated based on the amount of swear words, boobies, or gore they contain, but on the quality of the delusions the filmmakers are trying to sell. For Star Wars, mastering Jedi powers is a nice delusion, so let’s give that a PG, for pretty great, but some parental guidance is suggested to keep kids from developing a penchant for cosplay. As you’d expect of Corvette Summer, it gets an X, for xtra problematic perspectives on how to relate to women, anger management, and vehicular maintenance, or maybe it should really get an R, as in, young viewers R going to develop emotional hang-ups.

Score Technician: Alex Pearlstein

The Fast and the Furious

In 2001 Universal Studios released The Fast and The Furious, starting a franchise that has spawned six sequels and has grossed over $2 billion worldwide. Borrowing its title from a 1955 film and taking its story from a magazine article on illegal street racing, one thing is for sure:  This ain’t your daddy’s drag race. So, let’s grab the nitrous, strap the Nanobots in the jump seat and see if The Fast and The Furious lives up to the hype.

• We start with two short action sequences that mean nothing to us because we haven’t met anyone yet. = -15pts
• Meet the team! Vin Diesel Street Racing™ is: Vin Diesel (natch), Vin Diesel’s Girlfriend, Twitchy Genius Mechanic Kid, Captain Furious, and Other Guy. Vin Diesel’s other venture, The Vin Diesel Roadside Café™, is run by Vin Diesel’s Sister. = +7pts
• Congratulations, Captain Furious! You just started a fight with a guy over a tuna sandwich. Bet you’ll be as surprised as we are that this guy turns out to be the film’s protagonist. = -27pts
• Vin Diesel’s arms are huge. Beefcake! BEEFCAKE! = +20pts
• Minute 11 of this film sees the arrival of the car racing/chicks in leather pants/Limp Bizkit soundtrack part of the film. Whew, just in time. = +25pts
• After Vin Diesel wins the big race against Protagonist, they trade barbs in front of the crowd. Oh no, he din’t. = +5pts (Oh yes, he did!)
• In order to escape the scene of an illegal street race, let’s have a high speed car chase followed by a high speed car chase. = +13pts
• Protagonist aids Vin Diesel in escaping the cops. Yay! = +10pts 
• … Right into the territory of Rival Chinese Racing Team™. Boo. = -10pts (a wash)
• Well, it’s obvious that Vin Diesel has a history with Rival Chinese Racing Team™ (RCRT) that hang out in Kung-Fu Town™, as they have a conversation about things that neither we nor Protagonist understand. = -12pts
• It seems that Captain Furious’ only job is to keep telling Vin Diesel that Protagonist is a cop. Well, that can’t possibly be tr…Oh, it’s true. = -7pts
• Protagonist becomes New Guy. He’s in! = +15pts
• Twitchy Genius Mechanic Kid should be doing a lot more with his life than fixing engines for these lunk-heads, but is suffering from a made-up Hollywood learning disability.  Dear Writers, You do know that ADD isn’t the same thing as Autism, right? I think you meant to go with Autism here. In 2001=0pts. In 2013= -40pts
• We're not an expert on police procedure, especially Undercover Ops, but We're pretty sure, “I don’t care if you have to blow your cover to hell, just make this case!” isn’t the way it works. = -13pts
• “You better break this case in 36 hours!” Wow, who knew undercover cops had such tight deadlines.    =-10pts
• RCRT™ has a warehouse full of electronics that are paid for and not the stolen electronics the undercover cop/New Guy is looking for. That’s a mistake we all would have made. = -25pts
• Michelle Rodriguez is badass. That is all. = +20pts

• Let’s have a break in the illegal street racing action for some illegal drag strip racing action. = +10pts
• Twitchy Genius Mechanic Kid is racing for pinks? I mean, his car is impressive, but it’s no Greased Lightning. = -12pts
• Even in a fake movie fight, having Vin Diesel on top of you, punching you repeatedly in a full on rage-a-sode must be terrifying. = +9pts

• Note to Captain Furious: When riding outside the cab of an 18-wheeler in a high-speed stunt that goes wrong, leave the helmet ON! = -17pts
• Also, we would like to take a moment to remind the driver of the 18-wheeler that he has brakes. And can use them at his discretion. And he should do that instead of reloading his shotgun to shoot a guy off the hood of his truck while driving it in a perfect straight line. = -11pts
• Hey Captain Furious, we bet you’re happy that New Guy is a cop now that you have been shot in the middle of nowhere and he can call for an instant air lift to save your sorry ass. = +3pts
• Twitchy Genius Mechanic Kid is shot by RCRT™doing a motorcycle drive-by. Hey, New Guy, how about using some of your magical calling-for-help powers that being a cop affords you in this universe. No? Oh. OK, then. = -50pts
• Another high speed chase. Only this time, it’s cars and motorcycles. It’s like a totally different thing! = +12pts
• Whoa, dude, you’re a cop and you just shot a member of RCRT™. Don’t you have to call that in or something? Ah, fuck it, let’s race a train! = -16pts
• New Guy pursues Vin Diesel on yet another high speed chase. = -15pts
• New Guy must bring in this electronics thief in the next 2 hours or the terrorists are going to set off the nuclear bomb under the White House…no, wait, that’s Jack Bauer. Will someone please tell us why this is so important? = -25pts

• So, New Guy, after chasing Vin Diesel down and causing him to wreck his Charger, you’re just going to let him go? If you didn’t want to be a cop, why didn’t you just say so? You’re doing all this just to get back at your dad, aren’t you? Yeah, we could tell. =-16pts.

Total= -172pts.

Available on DVD, Netflix Disc, Amazon Instant, or just stream it for free off the internet 

This movie ends with a lot of unanswered questions, but by now we are too exhausted to care. The ‘bots made it to the finish line, but not without a few casualties. If you are looking for Shakespeare, you ain’t gonna find it here. If you want a solid action flick and don’t want to have to think too much, trust us, you could do a whole lot worse.

Score Technician: Stacey Hanlon

Tucker and Dale vs. Evil

Wouldn’t it have been funny if the Friday the 13th movies were basically a French farce? And if Jason Voorhees wasn't a hell-born killing machine, but just a simpleton who struggled with operating basic hand-tools at night, resulting in the comical death of Crispin Glover? This is (basically) the plot of Tucker and Dale vs. Evil. Only the nanobots can determine if this film, directed by "Young Hawk" from Space Cowboys, could possibly attain the heights of its forerunner in the French cinema du look movement.

• “Press pass this!” with accompanying middle-finger is the traditional response to an overweight security guy at a concert. It's not so appropriate to direct at your cameraman before wandering into an abandoned crime scene in the middle of the night. = -4pts 
• It’s West Virginia. People die there. = -3pts 
• Scorecard metric: Car full of 6 douchbag white people and 1 black guy means the black character must be in a “butler” situation. = -10pts (This means they were +2 white people for “trendy new network sitcom,” +3 white people for “beginnings of Martin Luther King Jr.’s America,” and -10 white people for “plantation.”) 
• Hats that say “Giv’er.” = +3pts 
• 3-minutes into this movie and we’re just realizing this may be a comedy. = -3pts 
• Wash from Serenity? Yep, this is definitely a comedy. = +4pts 
• Realization that the best comedies surprise as a result of the unintentional. = +2pts 
• Number of surprises in this movie: 0 = -10pts 
• Inescapable sense that the redneck talking about hot college girls and their alien nature probably speaks the same way about Latinos. = -8pts 
• Any movie attempting to subvert the perception of southerners and how they are actually harmless human beings might think about actually creating real human characters. = No points. Just a recommendation. 
• Wash is acting too hard. = +4pts (For trying.) 
• Aren’t rednecks funny?! People think they are always dangerous! Or gay! Oh situational comedy, you cut so deep! = -3pts 
• Apparently Cabin in the Woods is the sequel to Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, because they filmed at the exact same cabin, which must make the Evil Dead remake a pseudo sequel to that sequel/the conclusion to a trilogy since all three movies were filmed at this cabin. = +2pts 
• “If you have a lot of dreams about sucking a dick. But you don’t exactly suck it. Does that mean you are gay?” No, it means you dream about sucking a lot. Which may explain your terrible choice in friends. = -3pts 
• Flashback filmed to Technotronic’s epic dance track, "Pump Up the Jam." = +4pts (Because we’ve finally passed the event horizon of lameness with that song. “Get your booty on the floor now/Make my day. M-m-m-make my day.”) 
• Rednecks drinking PBR in the middle of West Virginia? Hipster filmmaker you have betrayed yourself, sir. = -2pts 
• Filmmakers imply that Dale has a photographic memory. We think he’s just good at trivia. = +2pts 
• Pouring PBR on your face to alleviate the pain of a multitude of bee stings. = +5pts 
• If our first experience in topiary resulted in a face full of bee stings and a college kid impaling himself on a tree branch, we might have left the wood-chipper in the shed. But then again, when you have such a giant banana peel, might as well toss it on the ground and see what happens. = -2pts 
• Wash makes everything better. = +10pts 
• “They cut off his bowling fingers!” = +2pts 
• Finding your best friend’s bloody hat while searching for him and then putting it on. = +2pts (+100pts, had it been underwear.) 
• “Eat shit body perm!” = +8pts (The Scorecard’s official welcome mat slogan.) 
• Pouring PBR on the bloody stumps of your missing bowling fingers. = +2pts 
• Watching a black man burn to death in West Virginia for the purposes of a “good laugh.” = -50pts (Too soon...) 
• One Rami-esque home assembly scene too many. = -3pts 
• How does a psychotic college douchebag who’s probably never taken a class harder than “The Poetry of Edmund Spencer” know how to operate the complicated machinery of a functioning sawmill? Dollars to donuts, this guy couldn’t whittle a wooden knife out of a whittled wooden knife. = -5pts 
• There are a lot of unbelievable things in this movie, but watching this scrawny bro toss around a dude that has at least four inches and 80 pounds on him is pushing the limit. = -5pts 
• Blaring emo rockers Say Anything (?) over the credits completely exposes world view of the filmmaker, who has clearly never been south of Northern Virginia. = -5pt

Total Score = -66pts

Available on: Netflix streaming, Redbox, DVD, Blu-Ray, A Klan Happy Christmas  

Tucker and Dale vs. Evil is basically a good joke told by someone who ruins good jokes. We’re all familiar with this person. How they mangle the opening, pick it up a bit towards the middle through sheer determination, right before promptly ruining the punchline. If there’s a good thing to take from all of this, it’s that this particular joke teller will grow into a grizzled Tommy Lee Jones, who, along with his best friend (Clint Eastwood), will find themselves, during their golden years, on the precipice of passion on the final frontier. Cinema du look, indeed.

Score Technician: Sean McConnell

Hellraiser

This time out, we exposed the nanobots to Clive Barker’s 1987 directorial debut, Hellraiser. We love this movie on many levels: for its atmospherics, its makeup and costume effects, and most especially for the complexity of its antagonists, the Cenobites--who, much like the nanobots themselves, are amoral seekers after pleasures forbidden and obscure.

Was it all a waste of good suffering? Will this movie tear your soul apart? Read on, and decide for yourselves.

• As always, the pursuit of pleasures at the outer realms of human experience is a cash-only business. = +9pts

• Frank Cotton teaches us that you can only open the doorway to hell from inside the “Wrapped Around Your Finger” video. = +7pts 
• We get our first glimpse of the Cenobites, who really, really, really enjoy chains hanging from their ceiling. We can’t possibly stress this enough. = +4pts 
•  That ancient wooden post with hundreds of bloody pieces of flesh nailed to it really ties the room together. = +9pts 
• We have such sights to show you ... Specifically, the sight of your own face being ripped off with iron hooks. = +15pts (What? Did you even look at the brochure?) 
•  Back on earth, Larry and Julia Cotton are moving into the Cotton boys’ mother’s house. Like all the locations in this movie, it appears to have never, ever been clean and wholesome. It is also filled with decaying food, maggots, and weird religious artifacts. Since this is a horror movie and not Extreme Makover: Home Edition, they don’t seem to mind at all. = +12pts 
•  Andrew Robinson, who plays Frank’s brother Larry Cotton, will go on to play Liberace in a 1988 biopic, surprising no one. = +3pts 
•  Ahh, the 1980s. Where actresses established eye-makeup traditions that are still observed in porno to this day. = -8pts 
•  Julia is …. dear God! Forget all that stuff with the hooks and chains and blood and face-meat—she’s SMOKING INDOORS! = (In 1987 = +/- 0pts; in 2013 = -20pts) -10pts 
• Introducing Kirsty Cotton, played by Ashley Laurence. You will see her again in three other Hellraiser movies, the 2008 action-movie Red, and probably nothing else. = -1pts 
•  Julia really likes those pictures of Frank nailing underage Thai hookers. Dirty girl. = +6pts 
•  Fantasy sequence: Julia likes her men rapey and stabby. = -6pts 
•  If you walk into a room and detect an audible heartbeat, get the fuck out. Did Edgar Allan Poe teach us nothing? = -3pts 
•  The stages of Frank’s rebirth: 1) boiling snot 2) giant bug-antennae 3) the mutant xenomorph baby from Alien Resurrection . = +9pts

• Ballpark Franks plump when you cook 'em. Frank Cottons plump when you feed ‘em the blood of middle-aged adulterers. = +15pts 
•  Kirsty Cotton interlude: Say hello to the creepy cricket-eating vagrant. Surely his presence will be explained later in the movie. = +3pts 
• Clothes make the man. But sometimes the man just makes the clothes sticky. Because no skin yet. = +7pts 
•  That awkward moment when your husband is sexing you, and then his skinless ghoul of a brother sneaks into the room and flays a rat with a switchblade. = +11pts 
• Maybe the Foley guys shouldn’t have used the sound of an eight-year-old finishing a Shamrock Shake to represent Frank feeding off his victims. Just a thought. = -2pts 
• Uncle Frank tartare attempts to rape-eat Kirsty Cotton, but she escapes by punching him right in the sigmoid colon and stealing his steampunk paperweight. = +9pts 
• Clearly, the thing to do now is to walk around a deserted industrial area until you pass out and awaken in a hospital from the 1950s. = -3pts 
• The hospital sure is boring. Might as well play with this puzzle box that my murderous undead uncle was terrified of. = +6pts 
• Hey, look! A clearly extradimensional passage, from which emanates the sound of screaming. Guess you’d better go in and check it out. = -2pts 
• That is one angry giant piranha-fetus-slug-scorpion. Just sayin’. = +3pts 
• At last, we meet the Cenobites. Here is what makes them the best villains ever: they only come when you ask them to. And you can’t just shoot them a text, either—you have to go to fucking Morocco, buy a magic puzzle-box, and figure out how to operate it entirely on your own before the Cenobites even recognize that you exist. They will not inflict tortures on you beyond your imagining … until you beg them for it. = +75pts 
• That’s exactly how Comcast technical support works! = +25pts 
• What are the Cenobites? “Explorers in the further regions of experience. Demons to some; angels to others.” Pinhead is a public-relations savant. = +25pts
• … although, if you are introduced to a group of leather-robed, humorless albinos with nail-studded skulls and indescribable facial deformities, and your first thought is “Hey, angels!” you are something of a statistical outlier. (no points, just an observation) 
• So Frank is now fucking his brother’s wife with a cock covered in skin that he stole from his brother by murdering and devouring him. I think Frank just committed EVERY SINGLE SIN at one go. Achievement unlocked! = +69pts 
• Goddammit, Kirsty. Frank just got that face. = -2pts 
• Way to take one for the team, Julia. Sorry about the stabbing and leaving you a desiccated husk. = +14pts 
• “You set me up, bitch.” Probably the understatement of the century. = +3pts 
• Frank-splosion! = +10pts 
• Whoa! Looks like the piranha-fetus-slug-scorpion doesn’t take “no” for an answer. = +8pts 
• Hey, you signed the puzzle-box end-user agreement: Violation of the terms stated hereunder may result in penalties not to exceed $250,000 and/or the fiery destruction of all your material goods by Sesame-Street quality visual effects. = +23pts 
• Aha! Now the creepy cricket-eating vagrant’s significance will finally be explained … = +15pts 
•  …by his turning into a skeletal dragon for some reason before stealing back the puzzle-box. Thanks, movie. = +1pt

Total Score = +334pts
Available on: DVD, Netflix streaming, the shadowy marketplaces of Tangiers.

What have we learned?

• That the things we struggle hardest to attain may be phantoms, concealing dire consequences we did not dream of? Check.
• That we must take care not to be ruined by our own desires? Check.
• That when your shifty uncle who lives in the attic says, “Come to daddy,” you run right the fuck out of there and don’t look back? Check check.
• But most of all we’ve learned that, if the sexy sex you’re having in the normal space-time continuum just isn’t doing it for you—if you actually transcend the borders of reality in search of the absolute sexiest of sexes—then you deserve whatever it is you find. Enjoy the hooks, weirdo.

Score Technician: John Ormond

Hardware

Adapted from a backup story from British sci-fi comic 2000 A.D., the 1990 sci-fi/horror cult classic Hardware has the distinction of being the first product of the Judge Dredd Universe (or “Dreddiverse,” as it’s called by absolutely no one) to make it to the big screen. Set in a post-apocalyptic world where people make a living by scavenging the ruins of decimated cities, Hardware centers around Moses “Mo” Baxter, whose gift of a salvaged robot head to his artist girlfriend, Jill, carries unforeseen consequences.

• Iggy Pop as gleefully nihilistic radio DJ, “Angry Bob.” = +15pts 
• Burglekutt plays a skeezy pawnbroker. = +7pts 
• Comical sidekick named “Shades” who—you guessed it—wears sunglasses all the time. = -8pts (Had the movie been released one year earlier, this would have been a plus.) 
• Zone Tripper is a proud graduate of the Bela Lugosi school of acting. = -3pts 
• Lemmy Kilmister survived the apocalypse and is working as a water taxi driver. = +5pts 
• …Who shamelessly promotes his own band to his fares. = -3pts (Show a little class, Lemmy.) 
• 50% of the black characters in this movie are retarded (so, you know, one character). = -26pts 
• For subtly implying that Shades and Jill were having an affair while Mo was out on his last salvage trip. = +10pts 
• For never bothering to revisit this plot thread again. = -20pts 
• The shower scene between Mo and Jill is straight out of a Def Leppard video. = -22pts 
• Props for using a Public Image Ltd. song, though. = +5pts 
• Pervo-neighbor voyeur looks kind of like Rush Limbaugh with a pony tail. = +19pts 
• Even when meditating alone in his apartment in the dead of night, Shades refuses to take off his sunglasses. = +8pts (His persistence has won us over.) 
• After the apocalypse, all Gwar music videos will be soundtracked by Ministry. = -17pts 
• Pawnbroker Burglekutt murdered by poison from the re-animated M.A.R.K.-13 hand. = +2pts 
• How heavy of a sleeper is Jill that she isn’t woken up by the clamorous sounds of industrial welding and soldering taking place five feet from her bedroom? = -12pts 
• The M.A.R.K.-13 has fashioned itself a robot drill-dick. Eat your heart out, Tetsuo. = +30pts 
• Halber Mensch footage on Jill’s TV a thousand times more terrifying than anything in this movie. = -9pts 
• Instead of chasing after Jill, the M.A.R.K.-13 occupies itself by obliterating her bed. Kind of lame…UNLESS THE BED WAS ITS TARGET THE WHOLE TIME! = -6pts (It wasn't.)
• Despite being alone in Jill’s apartment with two trapped, helpless humans, the M.A.R.K.-13 decides to sneak outside and hang around on just the other side of the window, waiting for someone to open the blinds because…it’s programed to kill with maximum dramatic effect? = -18pts 
• Pervo-Limbaugh’s death is perhaps the most magnificent display of overkill ever caught on film. = +50pts 
• Jill crawls into her refrigerator to hide herself from M.A.R.K.-13’s infrared vision…which we could accept if she wasn’t still COMPLETELY VISIBLE when we switch to the robot’s P.O.V. = -11pts 
• Mo demonstrates his badassery by running to Jill’s rescue and spraying shotgun shells ineffectually through open window. = -9pts 
• Mo gets injected by the M.A.R.K.-13’s venom, and suddenly the movie thinks it’s 2001. = -14pts 
• Not sure if M.A.R.K-13 is getting ready to rip a mofo to pieces or drop a sick beat, but it is definitely being played by a dude in a suit for this scene. = -28pts 
• We’d also like to state generally for the record that we have no idea what the M.A.R.K.-13 is supposed to look like. The specs make it out to be some kind of arachnoid construction, but we’re pretty sure it’s a whole different robot every time it’s shown in anything other than a tight close-up. While we’re on the subject, “movement” is not this thing’s friend, either. = -50pts 
• This being a ‘90s horror movie, it’s only natural that both black characters are killed off within seconds of each other after a combined total of 5 minutes of screen-time. = -43pts 
• Although one of them was sheered in half pretty spectacularly by a set of blast doors, so that’s worth a few points, at least. = +10pts 
• So this ultimate killing machine is capable of reconstructing itself from rubble and environmental debris and can self-repair catastrophic structural damage, but it shorts out if you get it wet? Sure. Why not? = -26pts

Total = -142pts
Available on: Netflix streaming, YouTube, the hard drive of a forgotten killing machine lying dormant in irradiated deserts

It sort of seems like the filmmakers put so much money and effort into lovingly crafting the post-apocalyptic hellscape in the beginning of the movie that they didn’t have much left to work with when it came time to build their robot killing machine. Fortunately, some gloriously over-the-top splatter and a pretty bitchin’ soundtrack help to keep things interesting. We can’t help but mourn the better movie that this could have been, but the gruesome shlockfest that it turned out to be is still pretty damn entertaining.

Score Technician: Joe Hemmerling

Frankenstein's Army

Set as found footage taken during World War II, Frankenstein's Army features a squad of Russian soldiers looking for their missing comrades but instead finding something even better: Nazi robot zombies! Can the nanobots withstand the shaky-cam pastiche of Wolfenstein and Silent Hill? Da!

• The Nazi flag is shown just long enough for muddy boots to trample it. = +3pts 
• After an awkward introduction to the cameraman, we're treated to a montage of each character to showcase their personalities. Hey, is that guy an Eskimo!? = +6pts 
• As the group trudges through the countryside, the cameraman's doofy assistant Sacha trips over some sort of mutant monster skeleton. The hardass commander's reaction: "I don't give a shit. We're here to help our comrades!" = -3pts (He's gonna regret that.) 
• The handsome radio operator is no Rusky – he's a damned Polack! No wonder he can't get the radio to work. = -2pts 
• After gunning down the inhabitants of a German farmhouse (including three children), the Russians get drunk and celebrate by throwing chickens, pushing down a guy in glasses, and falling off of a bicycle. = +7pts (What rascals they are!) 
• When the camera man is splurted upon by a not-quite-dead cyber-Nazi, he plays it off legit when the commander asks him what happened. = +3pts 
• What war movie is complete without a pile of smoldering nun corpses? = -5pts (All of them. All war movies are complete without a pile of smoldering nun corpses.) 
• Turns out that one of the nuns is still alive, so one of the soldiers quickly sticks a knife in her neck. We guess it's to put her out of her misery, but it could have just been for shits and giggles. = -4pts 
• All of the graves in the church cemetery have been hastily dug up and there are electrical wires covering the torn-down steeple cross. It's almost as if Dr. Frankenstein were constructing some sort of an army. = +3pts 
• When the soldiers enter the church and find that it's been converted into a factory, the soldiers aren't bashful about commenting on it (just in case the audience hadn't been following along). = -4 pts 
• The cameraman's doofy assistant is understandably hesitant to check the cellar for a generator, but once he's down there his hesitance borders on petulance. Just turn on the damn generator, man! = -3pts 
• Despite being quick to action when it comes to mercy killing a nun, the soldiers essentially just stand around while a sutured and faceless cadaver shambles to its feet and starts trying to touch everyone. = -7pts 
• It's like the old adage says: curiosity disemboweled the commanding officer! = +10pts 
• After gunning down the electrified zombie and euthenizing the commander, a power struggle brews between the handsome Polack and the d-bag soldier. Everyone sides with the Polack, thus dooming their entire mission. = -3pts 
• To cement his character's role as completely unlikeable, the douchey soldier kills a fuzzy bunny by smashing it over a table. = -6pts 
• The group finds an old man, shoots him in the leg, interrogates him, cuts off his finger, and then entrusts him with leading them to find their missing comrades. They then act surprised when he fucks off after leading them into a labyrinth of tunnels. = -4pts 
• First person point-of-view scenes of Nazi robot zombies jumping out from around corners and being shot at with machine guns. = +25pts 
• ...while an air raid siren drones in the background. = +5pts 
• After the Eskimo gets his head bitten in by the Nazi equivalent of the robot from the “Dragula” music video, the douchey soldier makes another attempt at assisted suicide. The Eskimo makes his displeasure of this prospect known with a well-timed suckerpunch. = +6pts 
• The douchey soldier makes himself feel better by using Sacha's hat to blow his nose. = +3pts 
• A "let's move the plot along" group suddenly arrives, complete with everything necessary for exposition: a dying guy, an old guy, a kid, and a young lady. = -4pts 
• The douchey soldier immediately and violently pervs on the young lady. = -5pts 
• The girl saves herself from molestation by proclaiming to be a nurse. If only that worked for us every time we're accosted on by a Russian. = +4pts 
• The nurse proves her medical talents by pulling the Eskimo's helmet off, trailing his brains along with it. "I'm sorry," she says. = +7pts 
• "That was fucking useless!" shouts the douchey soldier moments before beating the hell out of the nurse. = -7pts (War is no excuse for violence against women!) 
• The soldier who never said anything gets a drill through the face courtesy of a Schutzstaffel stilt monster. = +8pts 
• Monsters attack and stuff blows up. We demand little else! = +10pts 
• Spoiler alert! The mission was just a ruse to capture Dr. Frankenstein and bring him back to Mother Russia. Also, the cameraman is actually a captain (and will be henceforth referred to as Captain Cameraman). = +4pts 
• Finally, a Nazi zombie robot programmed to goose step! = +5pts 
• Aww, the Nazi zombie robot amputee is cute in a "dragging its legless body around" sort of way. If his head wasn't covered in spikes, we're sure that he'd be a hoot to cuddle. = +3pts 
• Zombie headshot! = +5pts 
• Soon after saving the life of the little kid from the exposition group, the soldiers dangle him down a bloodstained meat-chute to see what's at the bottom. = +3pts 
• It turns out that a Nazi zombie robot with an airplane propeller for a head was at the bottom of the meat-chute. Let's just say that the little kid is half the little kid that he used to be. = +12pts 
• Propellerhead is quickly dispatched when the soldiers cut his fuel line, causing the gasoline to ignite its circuitry and explode. Propellerhead, we hardly knew ye. = -2pts 
• The soldiers double-cross Captain Cameraman by dumping him down the meat-chute; he reacts by throwing a temper tantrum. = -5pts 
• More first person POV shots of Captain Cameraman running through the haunted house maze that is Dr. Frankenstein's underground lair. = +10pts 
• Once seen, the image of a woman's head grafted to a teddy bear cannot be unseen. = +8pts 
• The corpses hanging from the ceiling on meathooks really tie the room together. = +3pts 
• A German soldier's hopes for rescue are cruelly dashed when Captain Cameraman buggers off at the approach of a mechanocorpse. Hearing his anguished screams as he is carted away to be sluiced almost makes us feel sorry for the fascist bastard. = -5pts 
• Diving suit zombie jump scare! = +6pts 
• Dr. Frankenstein isn't without a sense of humor, for when he turned the Eskimo into a zombie robot, he gave him a hammer and sickle for hands. = +4pts 
• Captain Cameraman is captured by Dr. Frankenstein and force-fed a sanguine slurry. The gagging... oh, God... the gagging. = -7pts 
• Getting a guided tour of a mad scientists's lab. = +10pts 
• Dr. Frankenstein's mobile toolbox is hobbling about with some suspiciously familiar little kid legs. = +7pts 
• Douchey soldier reappears sans his left arm and gets into a "Fuck you!" match with Dr. Frankenstein. He loses. = +6pts 
• Handsome Polack also reappears as the winner of "Best Communist Award." The douchey soldier loses the contest and is given the consolation prize of a knife though the chest. Now who's being put out of their misery? = +3pts 
• The lady nurse is reconstructed into a metal-breasted amalgamation of the Bride of Frankenstein and Jabba the Hutt's dancing girl. = -4pts 
• Dr. Frankenstein's cuts open the skulls of the forsaken Nazi and the handsome Polack so that he can make a monster that is half Nazi and half Soviet. The man truly is insane! = -5pts 
• Filming the final scene in one continuous take. = +5pts 
• Stalin looks so happy to be PhotoShopped into the ending scene. Bolshoi pobyeda! = +3pts

Total Score = +112
Available on: DVD and Blu-Ray starting today, as well as in the Stalin family film archives

For a film with as ridiculous of a premise as Frankenstein's Army, it remained entertaining and creepy throughout. Its usage of practical effects and costumes for its incredible creature designs made seeing each Nazi zombie robot a treat to behold. So long as you don't put too much thought into the unlikelihood of '40s hand-cam technology being broadcast in HD with stereo sound or dwell too heavily on the sometimes sloppy exposition, this is a thoroughly enjoyable gorefest. If you and your comrades are going to gun down twisted monstrosities of metal and flesh, be sure to pack a Scorecard along!

Score Technician: T.J. Geise

Ghost Shark

Sharks have long been a staple of the made-for-TV thriller—bear witness to Super Shark, Two-Headed Shark Attack, Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus, and Sharktopus. But the unexpected success of Sharknado earlier this summer gave the genre a much-needed shot in dorsal fin. The abandon with which it hurled itself into its absurd premise was a gauntlet thrown down to future dabblers in the craft, and presumably one that was willingly picked up by the crew of Syfy’s Ghost Shark. Will Ghost Shark confirm that we are living in the new golden age of shark-based horror? Or will it merely be just another remora swimming in Sharknado’s mighty wake? Sounds like a job for the nanobots if there ever was one…

• Great white murdered by pair of rednecks is revived as the titular ghost shark when it’s dying carcass washes into a haunted cave. For showing that white people are, indeed, the cause of all the world’s problems = +10pts; for demonizing those with low social mobility and poor access to education = -8pts; for allowing us to use the phrases “ghost shark” and “haunted cave” in the same sentence = +5pts. Net score = +7pts 
• Bull from Night Court plays the Prescient Town Drunk Who Harbors a Dark Secret. = +10pts 
• Okay, making some wagers on who will make it to the end of the movie: 
• Bitchy Blonde Girl= -18pts 
• Morbidly Obese Teen = +6pts 
• Rich Black Kid = +25pts 
• Bitchy Blonde Girl astride a stolen jet ski gets bitten clean in half by a leaping Ghost Shark. = +18pts, +2pts bonus for doing it within 10 minutes of introducing her. Net score = +20pts 
• Rich Black Kid’s dad is the mayor of the town. = +13pts 
• Forget the ravenous, unkillable Ghost Shark; the real conflict of this movie is whether the pool party at the Rich Black Kid’s house is still on for tonight. = -3pts 
• The Ghost Shark, which is able to manifest in any body of water, reveals itself at said pool party by devouring a tattooed douche bag with such ferocity the d-bag’s somersaulting head lands upright, square on the neck of an open bottle of champagne. = +12pts 
• Plan to haul Morbidly Obese Teen out of Ghost Shark-infested pool hand-over-hand ends about as well as you’d expect. = -6pts 
• Virtuous Older Sister watches stolen police footage of father murdered by Ghost Shark, hasn’t changed ringtone since 1997. = -4pts 
• Cops who show up to site of pool party massacre demonstrate excellent police work by getting their bare hands all over crime scene evidence. = -8pts 
• Fat kid eaten on slip ‘n’ slide. = +5pts 
• The mixture of arousal and horror at an impressionable age is almost certainly going to make the little kid sitting behind the wheel during the Great Bikini Carwash Bloodbath of ’13 grow up to be a serial killer. = +11pts 
• Ghost Shark attacks Younger, More Sexually Precocious Sister in the bathtub, but she escapes with only superficial injuries to her leg because main character immunity. = -4pts 
• “Hey, could we run through that scene one more time? I think you flubbed a line there,” said no one at any point during this production. -18pts 
• Curator at Maritime Museum proves to be a helpful source of unsolicited exposition. = -6pts 
• Trashcan fire sets off museum sprinklers, precipitating another deadly Ghost Shark attack. The museum curator dies as he lived: spurting blood from his arm stump and clutching a penis-shaped object. = +7pts 
• It’s two-thousand-and-goddam-thirteen, and The Black Kid STILL can’t make it to the end of the movie. = -25pts 
• Unnamed aid to the Mayor drinks a haunted glass of water and gives us the movie’s money-shot. What the hell are they going to do with the next 30 minutes of thing? = +30pts 
• Hoodlum children bitten in half while running through a stream of water from a busted fire hydrant. = -4pts (It’s okay; they were probably poor.) 
• Mayor killed by getting pulled into a toilet. = +6pts 
• After their first attempt to destroy the Ghost Shark fails, the Virtuous Older Sister realizes they have no choice but to blow up the Cave of Questionable CGI. = -3pts 
• We have seen the Ghost Shark leap through the air to eat somebody half a dozen times throughout the movie, but for some reason, it’s struggling to get at two main characters because a shanty awning is covering them from the rain. =-13pts 
• SCENE OF SLOW MOTION RUNNING FROM AN EXPLODING CAVE! = +5pts 
• Forgettable Male Teen Hero offers a heart-felt remembrance for the fallen: “Sucks about Mick and Taylor and your Dad…And Cameron.” = -10pts 

Total Score = +22pts
Available on: Reruns on the Syfy Channel for the foreseeable future

There’s a definite diminishing returns thing happening here. The filmmakers deserve credit for milking the movie for every drop of over-the-top gore they could, but even at its zaniest, Ghost Shark can’t give us anything as pure and indelible as this golden moment from Sharknado. The moral of this story? Never send a Ghost Shark to do a Sharknado’s job.

Score Technician: Joe Hemmerling

Days of the Dead: Indianapolis, 2013

Every so often we like to take the nanobots out among everyday people, so they can calibrate their media-evaluation sensors against input from the normal world.

At other times, we take them to horror-movie fan conventions.

On July 5-7, we walked among the unliving—and occasionally the unshowered—at Days of the Dead in Indianapolis, IN. Here are our findings.

• Spending a rainy 4-day holiday weekend at a horror convention. = +20pts 
• Having a conversation with Don Coscarelli about filming movies in Palmdale, CA. = +7pts 
• Discovering that Don Coscarelli has an unusual fascination with Palmdale, CA. = +5pts (if you used to live in Palmdale) 
• Escaping Don Coscarelli without having our car turned into a mammoth fireball. = +15pts 

• Angus Scrimm having to cancel his appearance due to health reasons. = -89pts 
• Angus Scrimm still having health reasons. = +50pts 
• Angus Scrimm totally not phoning it in while phoning it in at the Phantasm panel discussion/Q & A. = +75pts 
• Thingfest! An appearance by six actors from John Carpenter’s The Thing. This is the largest reunion that has ever been put together for the public. = +36pts (Minus Kurt Russell)  
• Fuck Kurt Russell. = -6pts 
• Learning that “The Thing” in German is “Das Ding.” = +9pts 
• Meeting the lovely Rochelle Davis, who played Sarah in The Crow. = +10pts 

• Finding Tony Todd to be very gracious and approachable when not covered in bees. +15pts 
• Discovering that a guy named Dick Starr does not produce, direct, or appear in any variety of pornography. (no points-- just a nice surprise) 
• …but instead creates really cool—and very twisted—art (Don’t take our word for it: www.dickstarr.net). = +17pts 
• Note to troglodytes in line behind us to get Linda Blair’s autograph: I guarantee you that Linda Blair gives fewer than 0.004 nanoshits about your opinions on her appearance, her outfit, or her sexuality. Linda Blair wouldn’t fuck you with somebody else’s crucifix. Get bent. = -4pts 
• Danny Trejo! = +13pts 
• Machete don’t text. He also don’t take a picture with you unless you give him $10. = -4pts 

• Holliston blooper reel! = +7pts 
• Having a twentysomething tell your girlfriend that she’s very beautiful. = +25pts 
• …for her age. = -20pts (Dude. Seriously.) 
• Taking a picture of Lita Ford wearing jewelry your girlfriend made. = +30pts 
• Not being the person touching Lita Ford in that picture. = -5pts 

Total Score = +206pts

We came, we saw, we bought black shit with skulls on it. Thanks to all the stars and staff who made Days of the Dead possible—it was a great weekend for all of us horror fans, and we truly appreciate it.

Score Technicians: John Ormond and Stacey Hanlon

[Editor's Note: to view more of Stacey Hanlon's jewelry, check out her Etsy page: www.etsy.com/shop/bentmetalcraftworks]