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I hate stupid people.
Yes, I know that the characters in movies are not real people, simply the constructs of some deranged mind.
This knowledge does not help. I still hate stupid people, and I hate stupid movie characters, so, incase you haven't guessed by now, I hate The Thing That Couldn't Die simply because it is packed wall to wall with stupid characters and a plot to match.
Let me tell you the plot, then all shall be made clear. Jessica (Carolyn Kearney) is a teenager. . .I think. I mean, she's described as being "at that age", yet she looks about thirty. Whatever. Anyway, Jessica is a teenager (I'll take screenwriter David Duncan's word for it) who lives on a ranch. I think. It's suppose to be a ranch, except for the fact that LA sticks out like a sore thumb in most some background shots. Man, this is one hard opening sentence. Okay, what say we start again?
Jessica is a teenager who lives on a ranch with her one stupid aunt, Flavia (Peggy Converse)and two stupid ranch hands. In order to keep the ranch open aunt Flavaflave rents out cabins to people, three of them, in this case. Their names are Gordon (William Reynolds), Linda (Andra Martin), and Hank (Jeffrey Stone) and they will be your main characters for the evening. Would you like to see the wine list too?
As luck would have it, Jessica also has some sort of weird mental powers. How do we know this? Well, our first shot is of her searching for water with her mind. Instead, she finds something else. Something, eeevil. How do we know it's evil? Well, Jessica spends the rest of the movie going on and on about how evil it is, so after about 30 minuets you tend to get the sneaking suspicion that whatever is down there is, oh I don't know, evil perhaps?
The other characters, being stupid, ignore all of Jessica's warnings and start to dig in the evil spot anyway. What do you think they find? Water? Treasure? A bloody, severed human head? BUZZ! Wrong, dude. They find the missing 5 minuets of the Watergate tape, duh!
Fooled ya. You we're partially right, they find a treasure chest, apparently from Sir Francis Drake himself. How do we know it's from Sir Francis Drake? Why, because Gordon tells us. How does he know? Umm. . .can we talk about the plot again?
Yes, let's.
Despite Jessica labeling the chest "eeeevillll", and refusing to sleep in the
same house with it, the stupid characters lock it in a room and post extra stupid ranch
hand, Mike (Charles Horvath) at the door. Eventually Mike is convinced by
not-so-dumb-but-still-stupid ranch hand whose name I didn't write down. I guess I was to
bored to remember. Doesn't matter much, though. You'll see why in a little bit.
Hey, guess what, if you guessed number 3 to the question "What's in the box?" Well guess what? You're absolutely correct. It is a severed human head! This is the 50s, though, so don't expect much blood. Living severed human head would be a more appropriate title. Mind controlling, living, severed human head would work too, since the Head immediately gains control of Mike's peanut sized brain, and uses him to kill the other stupid ranch hand. One main character down, far to many to go.
Discovering the chest open and empty doesn't go over well with aunt Flavor of the Month. She's kind of worried about the disappearance of her ranch hands, too. Jessica tries to find them, but only manages to run straight into a handy flash back. Seams El Cabaza is the head of Satan worshiper Gideon Drew (Robin Hughes). Drew crossed Francis Drake one to many times and was beheaded; his body and head buried in different places. Now he wants to unite to two and gain back his evil power. Or something like that.
Gideon the head soon gains control of Linda's and Jessica's minds using the evil eye, a power I thought only Newt Gingrinch possessed. Jessica finds the body and the two unite using the incredible sticking power of rubber cement. Thankfully for the weak minded women the strong-minded men are there to protect them. Gordon, with his fake beatnik hair, and All-American good looks (I guess) does the American thing and gives Gideon a good solid punch. Gideon falls into his coffin and turns into a pile o' bones. The end.
I'm not kidding, that really is the end. No explanation is given; Gideon is just punched, falls over and skeletonizes. And can anyone explain why these people stick around the ranch once a murder is committed? Anyone? See what kind of stupid writing we're dealing with?
Talking about writing logically leads to talking about dialogue, which in turn leads us to acting. Both have one thing in common: mold. The dialogue is moldy, and the actors are so wooden they could grow mold with no problem. It seams as if, late one night, the casting director snuck into a wax museum, broke a window and made off with a bunch of statues. These statues were, in turn, animated by some bizare form of voodoo. The only way to tell the women's character's apart is the fact that Linda has tighter jeans and Jessica has a tighter bra. The only way to tell the men's character's apart is. . . umm. . . give me a second. . . oh hell, I give up.
Surprisingly, I don't find this concept laughable. I could laugh at it pretty easily, ya know. I mean, zombie head! Oooo. Are your sperm dying from fright yet? But, if only this movie had a brain in it's head it might have been something.
Woulda, should, coulda. The point is, it isn't something. It's just 69 minuets of mind numbing boredom. You can make fun of it, but what's the point? It's like shooting a dead horse.
RATING (OUT OF A POSSIBLE FIVE)
