The Aquabats! Super Show! Season One! DVD Review

Yes, that’s right, there are two exclamation points in this show’s title, and three exclamation points in the title of the DVD. And, guess what, every single episode has an exclamation point in its title as well. That’s certainly a lot of exclaiming.  I usually despise exclamation points, except when they’re used for humor, when their very use is actually poking fun at their use. And that’s what the Aquabats are doing. Everything about this show is making fun of itself, like just by them doing something they’re poking fun at whatever it is. It’s an interesting feat, and one that could easily go very, very wrong.

Fortunately, it rarely does go wrong. Sometimes, yes, it can be rather stupid. But it’s all in good fun. And for me, the show seems to improve as it goes on, with the episodes on the second disc being better than those on the first. Or perhaps I simply succumbed to the show’s odd charm.

The Aquabats! Super Show! Season One! is a two-disc set that includes all thirteen episodes of the first season, along with some bonus features. Five of the episodes have commentary tracks.  The Aquabats are a band dressed as superheroes, and in this show they are superheroes – of a sort. Each episode features them battling some strange (and decidedly cheap-looking) monster. Each episode also has two cartoon segments. The first is a continuing story of the Aquabats going to an underwater city on the moon. The best bit about that cartoon is the narration, which is often hilarious. The second features Lil Bat. And every episode has a fake commercial. Some episodes have special guest stars, like Lou Diamond Phillips and Al Yankovic.

“Manant!” – The first episode of the first season opens with a montage of scenes “previously on the Aquabats! Super Show!” Perfect. The band is playing a party, singing how they’re not going to stop playing. The next day they haven’t stopped. That is, until a nearby explosion gets them into super hero mode. Manant is blowing up burger places. And the Aquabats are hungry and want to help.

 “Mysterious Egg!” – The Aquabats fight a creature that is a distant cousin of Snuffleupagus, perhaps combined with something out of the AD&D Monster Manual. Jimmy The Robot destroys it. Then when they find a giant egg, they tell Jimmy not to blow that up too. Each guy imagines what could be inside the egg, and each fantasy turns horrible, causing them to scream. My favorite is the egg as dance partner. Of course, the egg contains a man in a bird costume, like if Big Bird had gone all wrong in a parallel universe. (Too bad they blew up Snuffleupagus.) The song during the closing credits makes me laugh.

 “EagleClaw!” – In the opening montage, the furry monster from the previous episode shouts, “It’s a trap” like Admiral Ackbar. There’s a Star Wars reference in this episode’s cartoon too. Anyway, Eaglebones goes a little overboard in his guitar solo, and as  a result the fans all flock to him after the show, including one, EagleClaw, who gives him a bomb.

 “Laundry Day!” – After fighting garbage monsters at the dump, the Aquabats need to get their uniforms cleaned. But the crazy villain who created the garbage monsters has taken over the dry cleaners. The band sings a song about doughnuts. The best line is at the end, when Ricky says, “I’m going to try to relax a little more. But I need you guys to relax a little less.”

“Cowboy Android!” – The Aquabats are no help at all to some miners who have a monster problem. They do a song about not planning anything, then run out of gas in the desert. They find a town from the old west, run by a robot sheriff. I love the bit when he retrieves his fake mustache and affixes it to his metal face. There’s also a seriously cute blond extra in this episode (according to the commentary, she’s from Russia). This episode also features some stop-motion animation.

“Uberchaun!” – The Aquabats are playing golf. When Crash’s cell phone goes off, the commander scolds him, “Do you even know how important golf is to the world?” That’s great. And a few moments later he follow it with, “Golf is ninety-nine percent mental, one percent exercise.” The Aquabats are soon cursed by the Uberchaun after their ball hits him in the head. He gives them one hour to complete three challenges. This is a really fun episode.

“Pilgrim Boy!” – The Aquabats meet Pilgrim Boy, a man who is able to change shapes. But while they enjoy having him change into various objects, a giant creature is terrorizing the land. This episode is a play on those 1950s giant monster movies. And Al Yankovic guest stars as President Stuncastin (get it? if not, in the closing credits they even add the “t,” to make it Stuntcastin). I also like that the band’s version of fantasy football is a football videogame with wizards.

“Floating Eye Of Death!” – This episode features a fake ad for a Stoopid Fone, which is pretty funny. But by far my favorite bit from this one is the song about trucker hats. I absolutely love that scene.

“Night Of The Cactus!” – A meteorite hits in the desert, and a cactus reacts predictably – by becoming a monster and kidnaping a woman (yes, shades of King Kong). When the Aquabats reach the site of the crash, the commander says, “Ooh, I bet this thing’s full of science.” He touches it, and his arm turns monstrous (reminding me of that scene from Creepshow with Stephen King).

“Showtime!” – In the season’s final episode, the Aquabats are broke, and also sad because kids are more interested in other superheroes – Supermagic Powerman and Lanolin Lady. So they decide all they have to do is save the planet. But first they play a song. The aliens grab a little girl, and Supermagic Powerman (Al Yankovic) and Lanolin Lady arrive to save her. But the little girl turns evil, steals their magic amulet and kills them (proving once again it’s always best to open fire on little girls). I love that when Crash says, “This is for the children,” the alien creature responds, “Your children?” In this episode’s commentary track, they say they wrote the opening scene because the show was running out of money. Also, apparently there is a My Little Pony somewhere in that scene (I didn’t see it). Two previous members of the Aquabats make appearances in this episode.

Bonus Features

The bonus features include the show’s pilot, which also has a commentary track. The pilot is quite a bit different from the series. It still has a cartoon and a fake ad (two fake ads, actually), but the structure is different. The cartoon comes after the live-action plot has come to an end, rather than stuck in the middle somewhere. And the cartoon is nearly half the show. (I actually like this cartoon more than the ones in the series.) And there is concert footage shot at El Rey in Los Angeles.

There is also a five-minute blooper reel. And there is something titled Behind The Scenes!, but it’s not really a look behind the scenes. Instead it’s a lot of staged silliness.

This show stars Christian Jacobs as M.C. Bat Commander, Chad Larson as Crash McLarson, James R. Briggs Jr. as Jimmy The Robot, Richard Falomir as Ricky Fitness and Ian Fowles as Eaglebones Falconhawk.

The Aquabats! Super Show! Season One! is scheduled to be released on May 21, 2013 through Shout! Factory (yes, another exclamation point).

Bad Kids Go To Hell DVD Review

There was a period of time in high school when part of my daily routine was to come home from school and immediately watch The Breakfast Club. Only after watching that movie could I deal with homework or conversations with my parents. I suppose we all go through a period like that. I would guess the creators of Bad Kids Go To Hell might have gone through such a phase.

Bad Kids Go To Hell is a strange sort of horror film that takes the premise of The Breakfast Club and twists it into its own odd shapes. It opens with the police busting into a school, and surrounding a kid who’s holding a bloody axe, just as a headless body collapses behind him. It then cuts to eight hours earlier, and the events that lead to this scene.

It is a Saturday, and there are five names on the list of those serving detention, just as in The Breakfast Club. However, three are girls, and two are boys, which is the opposite of The Breakfast Club. Matt Clark (Cameron Deane Stewart) is not on the list, but shows up to offer to do detention in the hope that that might keep him from being expelled. “I’m here because I want to make things right,” he tells Dr. Day (Jeffrey Schmidt).

As in The Breakfast Club, we see each of the kids being dropped off by parents or arriving on their own. Tricia (Ali Faulkner) is the princess character; Craig (Roger Edwards) is the jock; Veronica (Augie Duke) is the Judd Nelson character, arriving on her own and walking in front of a car; Megan (Amanda Alch) is…well, I guess the Ally Sheedy character; and Tarek (Marc Donato) is the Anthony Michael Hall character. During the character introductions we get voice over of Dr. Day talking to Max (Ben Browder), the janitor, about teenagers. He says, “Honestly, Max, it’s a miracle they don’t all kill each other.”

They have detention in the library, in a room set up in a similar fashion to that in The Breakfast Club (with the two levels). But with a crazy snake sculpture. As in The Breakfast Club, the kids are assigned an essay to write while serving detention. The topic is the history of Crestview Academy. Dr. Day confiscates their cell phones and tells them the doors will be locked until after lunch (and yes, he has them use the bathrooms first).  By the way, his mug says, “Everyone’s A Complete Disappointment.” Perfect.

Tricia right away makes a speech, basically saying this is not The Breakfast Club: “And this is not the fucking feel-good ‘80s movie of the year, where for seven hours we put aside our diffs and, through commiserating about our mutually dysfunctional family lives or how lonely or alienated we each feel, we find some sort of common ground and end up as BFFs.”

Throughout the film we get a series of flashbacks that show what brought each of the kids to detention. And look, there’s Judd Nelson as the headmaster of the school. (By the way, Matt crawls in the air duct, like Judd Nelson did in The Breakfast Club.) There is also a bit of Carrie in one of the flashbacks.

The library is possibly haunted by a dead Indian. They hold a séance to find out if the place is really haunted, and sure enough, things get weird. There is also a serious bug problem at this school. And we learn that these students are connected through some stuff related to their parents.

The film certainly attacks its subject with a sense of humor. For example, there are several jokes about how people whip out cell phones and film everything rather than helping someone out. And I can’t help but laugh when Judd Nelson refers to a wheelchair-bound student as “retarded.” One thing this film lacks, however, is the great music of The Breakfast Club (though I dig the song in the cafeteria scene).

Special Features

The DVD has several special features, including three photo galleries. The galleries play through, so you don’t need to hit the arrow button. They are Comic Book Art by Anthony Vargos, Behind The Scenes, and FX Makeup, and the three total more than twenty-five minutes.

There is also The Making Of Bad Kids Go To Hell, which is divided into two parts: “Kids Introductions” and “Craig Vs. Ghost.” The first part is basically editor Justin Wilson doing a commentary over the scene where each of the kids is introduced arriving at the school. And the second part has Justin Wilson commenting on the scene when Craig is freaking out, firing his gun. So this isn’t really a making-of feature.

There is also a feature-length commentary track by director/co-writer Matthew Spradlin and producer/co-writer Barry Wernick. Interestingly, it turns out that the nipples in the strip scene are CG. Also, they used a skateboard as a dolly.

The special features include “Visual FX Breakdowns,” showing how various shots were layered and so on. We see shots like the headless body dropping, and the roaches rushing through the air duct. The license plate that says “DR DAY” was actually changed in post, which is surprising. And of course there is the trailer.

Bad Kids Go To Hell was directed by Matthew Spradlin, and is based on a graphic novel by Matthew Spradlin and Barry Wernick. The DVD was released on April 9, 2013.

The Bunny Game DVD Review

The Bunny Game is a strange sort of horror film in which a prostitute identified only as “Bunny” in the closing credits is kidnaped and tortured by a truck driver called “Hog.” The film is presented in black and white, which has the effect of making the world seem just slightly off from ours, but equally real, like another layer of this life just below the surface.

The movie opens with a close-up shot of a woman being suffocated in a plastic bag, then cuts to Bunny in the act of fellatio, the man’s hands holding her hair. Bunny is having trouble breathing too, thus drawing an immediate connection between the two women, relating the two experiences in a strange way.

Then we see Bunny (Rodleen Getsic) in her world - walking the streets, smoking cigarettes, doing cocaine, being used roughly by another man then crying afterwards, clearly unhappy with her life. But then she’s back on the street, not changing because of that experience. The film quickly establishes the odd pattern of her life. It’s a montage, but it effectively sets up her life.

At times, the screen goes black between scenes, also effectively working to describe her situation – the blackouts, the missing moments when she’s absent from her own life. A john rips her off during one of those moments. It’s surprising after that when she makes a phone call. Who would she call? She seems so alone. But whoever it is doesn’t answer. Maybe she called no one. This is a woman who is on her own.

All of this really works to establish her character before the moment when things will go even more wrong for her. And that moment has one of my favorite shots of the film. We see the truck approaching from a long way off behind her. We notice it, and have enough time to think about what it means for her before she notices it.  Also, this moment is where she seems her most at ease, her most calm. She dominates the left side of the screen, as the truck slowly pulls up on the right. It pulls over beside her, and surprises her (but not us). And then she’s in, doing cocaine with the driver (Jeff Renfro). That’s still part of her normal pattern, but we know things are now far from normal, even from her version of normal.

This is when the film changes. Bunny is knocked out for quite a while, and the man plays with her in the back of his truck. At times it’s intense, though oddly it goes on long enough that you become detached a bit. And when she finally wakes, screaming, chained up, you realize it’s the next day. The truck driver is seated outside, patient. That’s another excellent moment.

And then the torture begins. It’s interesting, because in some ways the first part of the film is more intense and unsettling than the second. Partly, this is because of the way the film is cut once it gets to the torture. There’s another montage, of Hog in the truck and, presumably, at home, torturing another woman. Flashing back to that other woman eases the tension, rather than creating more, because that stuff is safely in the past. It would be more intense if the film stayed relentlessly in the present, with Bunny, there being no escape for her, nor for us. If we stay with her, then we’re experiencing everything with her. The flashbacks effectively give us distance, because we have more information than she does. For example, when he shaves Bunny’s head, we’ve already seen him do it to someone else, so it’s not surprising to us the way it would be for her. It’s not shocking.

What the other girl’s presence does do, however, is show that Hog’s life follows its own pattern, just as Bunny’s does, and so draws some strange connection between them.

There are a lot of crazy flashes and quick cuts, which also seem to remove some of the tension. The closer the film gets to a music video, the less real it feels.  I wish the film would hold on some of the shots longer, making the audience really face what’s happening, rather than using those short, frantic cuts. Those quick cuts do work in small doses, of course, like a sudden racing of your heart. And there are some really good, well-framed, interesting shots.

Plot-wise, not much happens. But this film does stick with you. It’s sort of the mood of the thing that stays with you, as well as some of the images. And both of the lead actors do a great job. There is a moment near the end when Bunny expresses a sort of delirious, demented joy that is absolutely fantastic.

It’s almost a two-person production. The director, Adam Rehmeier, is also producer, co-writer, editor, and cinematographer. He also did the original score. Rodleen Getsic, who plays Bunny, is also a producer, writer, and costumer. (By the way, her own last name is tattooed on her arm, and I had mixed feelings regarding that tattoo’s presence in the film. On the one hand, it does make it feel that this is really happening to her; on the other hand, I kept thinking about it, and wondering if they couldn’t have used makeup to cover it, as the actor’s name is not necessarily the character’s name.)

Special Features

The DVD contains several special features, including a commentary track by director Adam Rehmeier and star Rodleen Getsic. The commentary does provide some interesting information. Neither star was an actor prior to this, and Jeff Renfro really is a truck driver. Adam’s story of meeting Jeff is insane. They shot short days, only five or six hours a day. We learn that the shots of the other woman were done in Jeff’s own home. Adam and Rodleen do talk briefly about how the film was banned in the UK. Adam calls the movie, “a modern cautionary tale that’s grounded in reality.”

Safety did not seem a primary concern in making the film. For example, in a shot where Bunny is running, they talk about how Rodleen got metal shards in her feet. But we don’t really see her feet in the shot, so the actor could very well have worn shoes. I assumed she did when I was watching it.  Plus, the branding, as it turns out, was real. Jeff Renfro actually branded Rodleen Getsic. They talk about how Jeff did it without giving the director any signal, and Adam was lucky he was able catch it with the camera. That is insane.

The commentary is a bit frustrating because they don’t answer the biggest question, which is, What exactly from this was based on Rodleen’s experience? They hint that this film was based at least partially on something from her life, but at no point does she indicate precisely which scenes or moments were from her life.

Rodleen comes off as a bit of a weirdo in the commentary. She talks about how she saved a bag of her hair from the production, and still had it as of the time this was recorded. She also made a gift of some of her hair, and I can't help but wonder how that person reacted.

The second special feature is a sixteen-minute documentary titled Caretaking The Monster: The Story Of The Bunny Game. This special, which is as interesting as the film, features interviews with Adam Rehmeier, Rodleen Getsic, Jeff Renfro, Gregg Gilmore, and Drettie Page.

Here Rodleen does talk briefly about her actual experience. She says she’s been “abducted more than a couple times. But this one time in particular was pretty savage.”  Jeff talks about attacking Adam when they first met. Adam talks about how there was no script, just a story idea. He also says the only things faked in the film are the cocaine and the alcohol.

Perhaps the most interesting interview is with Gregg Gilmore, who plays Jonas. He’s in only one scene, but originally the film was going to be about his character. He talks about how and why he decided he couldn’t do the whole film, and that is really interesting. There was no crew for this shoot, and Rodleen was basically willing to do anything. Gregg, the voice of sense and reason, says, “It’s thrilling, but it’s so fucking dangerous.”

Rodleen, by the way, is candid about her feelings about him backing out. And, clearly a bit of a nut, she says, “Part of my soul did die in making this film.”

The DVD also includes two trailers for the film, as well as a Poster & Still Gallery.

The Bunny Game was released on Blu-ray and DVD on July 31, 2012 through Autonomy Pictures.