Which Was Worse #8
Slotherhouse vs. Llamageddon
Hello and welcome to Cinema Wellman. I am your host David and today we will once again pit two bad films against one another to determine “Which Was Worse!”
When planning our “WWW?” episodes, we like the films to have something in common. Today we have two animal movies, and they happen to be two of my favorite animals.
As always, we will use the “Official” Cinema Wellman WWW? Rubric™ where films earn anything from 1 to -3 points before heading to the lightning round.
A reminder that each of the comments during the lightning round will cost the movie one point unless otherwise indicated.
There are also rare occasions when the film will actually EARN a point or two during the lightning round by doing something that actually pleases me.
Once again, here are the categories:
The Official "Which Was Worse?" Rubric™
Slotherhouse (2023)
PG-13/93 min./IMDb: 4.6/directed by Matthew Goodhue
"Don't Rush, Die Slow"
IMDb: “Emily Young, a senior, wants to be elected as her sorority’s president. She adopts a cute sloth, thinking it can become the new mascot and help her win, until a string of fatalities implicates the sloth as the main suspect in the murders.”
Story/Plotline/Script: 0
Acting: 0
Special Effects: 1
Self-Awareness: 1
Effort: 1
That is an UNPRECEDENTED +3 in the rubric making Slotherhouse the ONLY film to ever escape the rubric with a plus score!
Let’s see how they do in the lightning round!
*Emily runs into a shady exotic animal dealer (of course she does) who wants to sell her a sloth so she can bring it back to her sorority house.
*Hateful bully sorority sisters I want the sloth to kill, and the sloth isn’t even there yet. I went to Vanessa’s sorority house, and it was nothing like this.
*When they introduce each character, we see their social media info, number of followers, etc. (+1)
*Sigma Lambda Theta? Is that real? SLT? Sloth?! (+1)
*The exotic animal dealer was a creep, and he treated the animals poorly? Didn’t see that coming! (-2)
*Emily is kind of stupid. When she goes to the exotic pet store to pick up the sloth, the store is deserted, the sloth is out of her cage, so she just picks up the sloth and leaves. Sloth had killed the creepy dude, of course.
*No pets in the house unless it’s the house mascot. The girls vote to keep the sloth as the house mascot, so they kind of invited her in like a vampire. All will die.
*They name the sloth Alpha. Alpha is cute. Murderous, but cute. (+1)
*You CAN own a sloth! I looked it up! It is legal to own a two-toed sloth in Arkansas, Florida (with a permit), Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, New York, Nevada, North Carolina, Oregon, Texas, and South Dakota (with a health certificate). Not sure if the health certificate is for the sloth or the owner. They grow to about 2 feet long, weigh up to 17 pounds, and live more than 30 years. Get on that list Massachusetts! (+1)
*Mean Girls if Mean Girls had a killer sloth. They even have a character suddenly hit by a car! (+1)
*“Can I pet her?” “Sure!” I know nothing about this animal or its temperament, but sure, put your hands on her! (-2)
*The killing spree montage is awesome. I love that they totally ignore the fact that sloths are slow. This one has moves! (+1)
*Alpha drugs the girls so they’re paralyzed and then she kills them.
*Alpha zips a girl in a sleeping bag and tosses her off a bridge. That happened! Alpha also kills one of the girls in the hospital by putting a pillow over her face. That ALSO happened!
*The sloth is TECH savvy! After killing the girls, she goes online and updates their socials saying they moved or went away on vacation! Brilliant! (+1)
*Alpha drives a sports car!!!! Toonces the Driving Sloth! Sloth also may have gone to trade school at some point since she has a working knowledge of plumbing and electrical. (+1)
*So, is just this movie sloth fast, or are ALL sloths fast and they just don’t want us to know about it?
*An extremely stereotypical portrayal of a lesbian character was disappointing since they did a lot of other things right. (-3)
*“You can’t go back in there, it’s a Slotherhouse!” and all the girls moan and groan about how dumb that is. Roll credits! (-2)
*“I love you.” “I know.” Can we please retire that? It should only have been used once anyway! (-2)
*Alpha wears the tiara put aside for the House President. (+1)
*Credit for them making this film WITHOUT gratuitous nudity. This is a PG-13 movie. Plenty of opportunities to add nudity and make it R, but they refrained. Kudos! (+2)
*The sloth says, “Home,” at the end! Like E.T.! Wait, the sloth could talk this whole time?!?! (-2)
*They do a “One Year Later” that shows the girls at the house at a charity booth. The animal rights organization is called F.E.T.C.H. which stands for Fighting for Ethical Treatment, Care and Humanity! One of their messages is, “Don’t get a sloth. They’ll kill you.” (+3)
*Closing credits, “No animals were harmed in the making of this film.” “No AI was used in the creation of this film.” Good for them! Fuck you, AI! (+3)
There were quite a few positives there, and when all the math was done, the final score for Slotherhouse is a ZERO!
The all-time high for a WWW film was a -9 for The Mean One from WWW#6, so history tells us there’s no way Llamageddon is going to best that, but let’s make sure…
Llamageddon (2015)
UR/69 min./IMDb: 3.9/directed by Howie Dewin
"A Wooly Terror from Space!"
IMDb: “A killer llama from outer space crash lands on Earth and brings death and destruction to everyone in its path.”
Story/Plotline/Script: -1
Acting: -3 (only because that’s the maximum on the rubric)
Special Effects: 0
Self-Awareness: -1
Effort: -2
Llamageddon goes into the lightning round with a -7 which is going to be extremely difficult to make up.
*Begins with an animated sequence over heavy metal music that will prove to be better than anything and everything this movie has to offer. (+1)
*They used real llamas and just gave them laser eyes. SNL did this with “Laser Cats!” (+1)
*The acting is abysmal. To be fair, it appears that none of these people are trained actors. Slack should be given, right? Maybe not. (-2)
*I called it two minutes in! Llamageddon is worse than Slotherhouse!
*“Since when did Mema and Pep-Pep get a llama?” That almost got REALLY weird!!!
*Howie Dewin directed. Get it? It’s not going to help them in any way. (-5)
*Grandparents killed in their own house by llama, and mom GIVES the house to the grandkids and leaves them there unattended. All should die via llama. (-2)
*Busch Lite sponsorship perhaps? Maybe they ponied up the $1,200 this crap must have cost to make.
*This is only 69 minutes long and there’s a slow-motion dance scene after a dirty joke that lasts almost a full minute. How We Doin' Now? (-2)
*On IMDb, the cast features only ONE cast member who has a photo with their credit! I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before.
*Lasers from the llama’s eyes set people on fire and burn them, BUT they also explode and spray ALL of the blood on others? (-2)
*Me, “Give me this script and I could find strangers on the street, and they’d do a better job than this.” The acting almost made it unwatchable.
*There was a scene in this movie that caused me to pause and rewind two or three times since I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. There’s an old stoner phrase involving alpacas that I was hoping they wouldn’t include in the film. Not only did they include it, they did it with a 5 second 4th wall silent stare directly into the camera. I timed it. And, not that it matters to them, llamas and alpacas are not the same. Would you make a crocodile joke in a movie about alligators? Actually, I’m sure they would. (-5)
*The llama punches a girl in the face repeatedly with their hooves and it makes a flesh-on-flesh sound. Not that the sound effect was the biggest problem with this sequence. There are TWO such scenes in this movie! (-2)
*The blood appears to be hosed out of a squirt gun or a Super Soaker. (-2)
*There’s projectile vomiting that’s obviously just water from a pressurized hose. I know I complain about movie vomiting all the time, but at least put in the effort to make it look like vomit. Lazy. (-2)
*One guy turns into a llama. Not sure why. Did he touch llama blood or something? Llama may have bitten him at one point, but you can imagine how checked out I was by now.
*Humans are sprinting to get away from the llama, and the llama is just patiently strolling after them. Meandering, I may say. Good for the llama! (+1)
*Since they couldn’t film the guy turning into a llama, it went back to animation for the llama transformation. As I’ve said many times before, just make a cartoon. (-2)
*The llama guy looks like he gives birth to a series of furry eggs. The filmmakers do realize that llamas are mammals, yes? They do realize llamas don’t lay eggs, yes? (-2)
*Llama boy does the old, “Kill me…” we’ve seen so many times before in so many better movies. (-2)
*Louie the Llama got an AIC!!! Easily the best part of this. (+1)
*Llama is run over by a thresher! How can you not evade huge farm machinery! You’re an alien llama!
*Something that I have NEVER seen before. Over the closing credits, they show a timelapse of the ENTIRE FUCKING FILM! (-69, one for each minute of this movie I sat through)
*“No llamas were harmed during the production of this film. Only the dignities of all those involved.” Well, I can’t argue with that at all. (+1)
That one positive point at the end did NOT help at all, and Llamageddon ends up with a final score of -113 which sets an all-time WWW record, so not only is it worse than Slotherhouse, Llamageddon is worse than ANY of the 20 films we’ve screened in the history of WWW!
And that bar is set pretty low for the future. That record may stand for a while.
Well, that is a wrap for a history making “Which Was Worse?” episode.
We hope you return next time when we take a look at “Soundtrack Saturation.”
Do you ever watch a movie and hear a song and say, that song is in every movie?!
We’re going to look at THOSE movies!
Can you think of any?
Until then, take care.
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