Indie Scene: "The Cellar Door," "Superbadazz," and "Blind Eye"

Hey everyone, and welcome to the Spring Cleanup edition of Indie Scene. I want to bring up a little something before I start getting into the actual reviews. A few days ago, I reported in my section K.I.S.S. News that Uwe Boll’s new film “Postal” wouldn’t be premiering in as many theaters as it was supposed to premiere in. Anthony Thurber brought it up in his Reviews From the Horror Chamber column and said that it was censorship at its worst. And I can’t say any more that I agree. I, for one, am not an Uwe Boll hater. I think that his last flick “In The Name of the King” was pretty decent. But Boll hater or not, you can’t begin to stress the fact that there are worse films out there compared to what “Postal” can be. Cameron Diaz, Patrick Dempsey, and, soon, four ladies that won’t stop fighting will all be crowding theater circuits. “Postal” was dropped from its one-thousand five-hundred theaters schedule to only FOUR theaters. It’s bad enough that the film is already getting shit for it without having people watch it, but the censorship blows me away. But anyway, here are the films for this Spring Cleanup edition of Indie Scene…


"The Cellar Door”
2007
** out of ****
Director: Matt Zettell
Cast: James DuMont, Michelle Tomlinson, Heather Sconyers


After Anthony’s positive review for this film in the Reviews From the Horror Chamber column, the director looked to get a second opinion… by me. It may have been a wrong move, but I’m the kind of guy who doesn’t have a problem with getting free DVDs to review. Even if they’re bad movies, I don’t have a problem with watching your flick. And as far as this one goes, it is a bad movie, but it isn’t as bad as some of the movies that I’ve seen that have gone Direct to DVD (ahem… “Yeti”), but it isn’t even close to competing with a film like “The Murder Game.” Though it could have been much, much worse, I can only classify it as another sequel to “Hostel” (though it really isn’t, there is a LOT of torture… seriously). A woman (Michelle Tomlinson) finds herself locked in a cage one night in the cellar of a vicious, violent, and savage man. (James DuMont) She must break out of the cage before she becomes his next victim.

“The Cellar Door” starts off really, really bad. And I’ll admit that it changed in the second-third. Once we begin to get a feel for the claustrophobic space that Zettell and his friends provide for us, the audience will become amazed by the dark setting that we are provided with. The villain, played by James DuMont, is probably the best part of the movie. He succeeds in all lengths to be an actual villain. He shows his true feelings throughout this third and the audience feels bad for the guy. Compared to the ones from “Hostel,” this guy is like a goddamn pro. But the third-half isn’t nearly successful. It’s clichéd and very anti-climatic. It just gets stupid, and it feels like we’re just watching a few people killed to see the sake of blood. “The Cellar Door” is a bad movie, but it isn’t like that there aren’t a few good things about the flick.


“Superbadazz”
2008
* out of ****
Director: Z. Winston Brown
Cast: Randy Clark, Michael Harris, Shaun May


Boobies… that’s all that you can think about while watching “Superbadazz.” I picture one day winning the lottery once I turn eighteen and then walk right into a strip club, with hot nude girls surround me while they beg for money. Z. Winston Brown has a fetish with weird looking strippers, apparently. The only lap-dances this guy must have gotten were lap-dances from one-legged women. “Superbadazz” is so close at being given a BOMB rating, and if it weren’t for a few slight chuckles, it would have been given a BOMB rating. The one other thing keeping me from actually giving the movie a BOMB rating is that I got to laugh at the fact that the dumbasses that worked on this film spelled “badass” wrong.

“Superbadazz” tells the tale of two gangster fools who start a strip club in their parents’ basement. Their strip club can easily compete with the circus, because all of the characters in the film feel like that they are coming out from the circus. The hardest part about this is that these two gangsters have to keep it a secret from their parents, their dad played by a wannabe James Earl Jones. “Superbadazz” doesn’t have many laughs, except for the scene when one of the characters goes into the strip club and starts to pay strippers with pennies. The acting is just as bad as the plot, which is flawed and very predictable. And then the big payoff at the ending is cheaper than a pair of socks. “Superbadazz” is one of the single worst direct to DVD flicks that I’ve seen, and the fact that I’m featuring the film on Indie Scene makes this article smell bad.


“Blind Eye”
2006
** out of ****
Director: Mark McNabb
Cast: Levi Oliver, Joel Hookey, Roddy Piper


One of the first films I saw this year was “In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale.” The movie, while it is still one of the better films of the year, has some of the shittiest editing (done by Uwe Boll, of course). The action is obviously faker than the tits on Paris Hilton and the dialogue was forced. “Blind Eye,” the directorial debut by Mark McNabb, isn’t too good. Actually, it isn’t good at all, but it was better than the other two movies that I reviewed this week. It is a half cop-flick, half-character driven flick. Although, I really did like it better when it was called “Gone Baby Gone,” I think that I would rather watch this many more times compared to “Superbadazz.”

Two cops, one bigger than the other, are out to look for a missing girl. That’s the basic plot. I won’t get into the other characters’ stories because they are somewhat important to the story and then I would be giving away spoilers. But “Blind Eye” works as a character study rather than a cop drama. To tell you the truth, I just got bored by the cop scenes. The acting, aside from the acting done by Roddy Piper, was actually pretty decent. The final product isn’t terrible, but it isn’t good either. “Blind Eye” came out last Tuesday and if you like cop films, you should check it out.


Well that is it for this week’s edition of Indie Scene. The next edition will be in three weeks, so if you visit next week, you won’t find one from me. Thanks for everything guys, and stay tuned!