Crank: High Voltage

There are basically two types of people in this world: Those who think the Crank series is preposterous, offensive, and retarded, and those who are like “Duh.” Personally, I find that first type of person hilarious. Obviously, a series of films as over-the-top and willfully unrealistic as Crank and Crank: High Voltage had to have been designed that way from the start, but these assholes seem to think that it requires a world-class intellect like their own to notice it. They’re like, “At the end of the first one, Statham fell like 10,000 feet out of a helicopter. There’s no way he could survive that. What a crock of shit.” And I’m like, “I know, right? You know what else sucks? I saw this cartoon once where this dude shot a duck point-blank in the face and all that happened was its bill turned around backwards. And then—can you believe it?—the duck just turned the bill back around like nothing happened! That’s totally not what would happen if you really shot a duck in the face. Also, the duck could talk.” Basically what I’m saying is that pointing out that Crank is ridiculous and unbelievable is not a valid criticism. All you’re telling me is that you don’t like that type of shit in the first place, so why should I care about your opinion? It’s like somebody saying that Motörhead sucks because they’re too loud.

Now, I’m not necessarily saying you’re an asshole if you don’t like Crank and its sequel. I mean, you got a couple strikes against you, but if you could get down with the movies in theory but just don’t care for the hypercaffeinated visual style, I can appreciate that. I don’t normally go in for that kind of shit myself, but I think it works within the confines of the Crankiverse. So it’s cool, you and me can still be BFF’s. Just don’t try and tell me that the absurdity and crudity that has been carefully layered into the films from the script stage on was some kind of mistake that only you were sophisticated enough to point out. That dog won’t hunt.

Anyway, we should probably get around to talking about Crank Fucking 2 at some point. Most of you won’t agree with me, but I think the first one was a little better. The second one has way more crazy shit in it, but I think the storyline of the first one (Hitman has to keep his adrenaline up to stop the poison in his veins from stopping his heart before he gets his revenge) was more interesting. It’s a great action movie plot, because it creates a compelling reason for the hero to cause needless destruction, do lots of drugs, and pork Amy Smart in public. In Crank 2, Statham has had his heart (which is so badass that it somehow survived the poison from the first one all by itself) removed and replaced with an artificial one, so he’s got to keep juicing it with electricity so it won’t conk out before he gets his real one back. This leads to some hilarious shit, like when he electrocutes himself at a power station and somehow turns into a giant rubber-masked Godzilla version of himself. But it’s not as socially irresponsible as a movie that says sniffing cocaine off a filthy restroom floor to get your heart rate up is the right thing to do.

Also, I think the acting in the first one is a little underrated. There are so many little supporting parts that are so much more memorable than they could have been, from the dude who gets thrown off the roof who yells "What you mean ding? Whayoumeanding?" as he falls to his death to the surprisingly affable black gangster in the bathroom who says the immortal line: "There's a white nigga in here with a gun!" I also really appreciated the scenery-chewing yet oddly sympathetic performance of the main villain, who has a few moments where his facial expressions mix grief and hysteria and rage and humor in equal proportions. The performances in Crank: High Voltage are more of the Troma-style overacting-for-overacting’s-sake school. They’re entertaining and they fit the tone of the movie, but they’re not as distinctive as the ones in Crank 1.

The main area in which the original surpasses its sequel is in its ending. Having your hero jump to his (seeming) death from a helicopter and, while falling through the clouds, leave a goodbye message on his girlfriend’s answering machine was both incredibly badass and sort of sweet. It was a bold move to conclude 90 minutes of foul language, fornication, and bloodshed with a man coming to terms with his own mortality by giving closure to the woman he loved.

But even if Crank 2 isn’t as awesome as Crank 1, it’s still more awesome than a gorilla with a chainsaw. This movie is giddy, mean-spirited fun from beginning to end. It’s basically just scenes of crazy sex and violence and profanity slapped together one after the other, so you’ve barely had time to reconfigure your mind-grapes to deal with the insanity you just witnessed before they slap you in the face with some more. To support my thesis, I give you this quote from noted Onion AV Club commentator and caps-lock enthusiast Zodiac Motherfucker:

I AM HERE TO SERVE NOTICE ABOUT THE REAL THATS RIGHT CRANK 2 BITCH FUCK YEAH IT IS ONE OF THE GREATEST MOVIES I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY FUCKING FUCKING LIFE. WALL TO WALL OWNAGE YOU GOT STRIPPERS SHOOTING MOTHERFUCKERS YOU GOT CHINESE GANGSTERS TEARING SHIT UP YOU GOT GREAT BIG JACKED UP CHOLOS OWNING PEOPLE YOU GOT GAY DUDES WITH NUNCHUCKS YOU GOT STATHAM RUNNING AROUND LIKE A FUCKING HURRICANE OF OWNAGE YOU GOT AMY SMART BEING AWESOME AND HOT AND GETTING FUCKED IN PUBLIC YOU GOT HOOKERS CRUSHING SOME FAT MOTHERFUCKERS NUTS YOU GOT OLD ANCIENT ASS CHINESE DUDES GETTING PUSSY YOU GOT MOTHERFUCKERS GETTING THROWN OUT OF WINDOWS YOU GOT LITTLE KIDS BEATING THE FUCK OUT OF OTHER LITTLE KIDS LIKE FOR REAL A STONE FUCKING BEATDOWN HOLY SHIT IT IS ABSOLUTELY FUCKING INSANE THE OWNINGS PER MINUTE ARE PROBABLY THE HIGHEST THEYVE EVER BEEN

CRANK BITCH FUCK THE FUCK YEAH CHRISTMAS CAME EARLY THIS YEAR MOTHERFUCKERS GET YOUR ASS TO THE THEATER AND FEEL THE FUCKING VOLTAGE IF YOU LIKE TITTIES YOUR GONNA FUCKING LOVE CRANK 2

ZMF is rarely this effusive, but he's just barely scratching the surface of Crank 2’s madness. He didn’t mention how the pussy-getting old Chinese dude is played by David Carradine. Or the part where a stripper gets shot through both titties and they start leaking saline. Or when Statham interrogates a fat dude by cramming eight inches of greasy shotgun up his ass. Or Bai Ling’s outrageously offensive pidgin English, which is full of lines like “I bitchfuck you!” that are even funnier when subtitled—it’s like a Chinese takeout menu published by Larry Flynt. Or then there’s the part where a character from the first movie has a cameo as a rubber head in a fish tank. Or the part where a dude has the tip of his elbow hacked off with a machete for no reason. Or the part where Statham gives the audience the finger with his fucking face on fire. Shit, he didn’t even mention the part where Amy Smart puts Corey Haim through a windshield.

Still, despite his deplorable oversights, ZMF’s enthusiasm is dead-on. (Also: "Fuck the fuck yeah” is now something I say.) This is a superior entertainment that never stops coming up with inventive new ways to blow your fucking mind. I strongly recommend seeing this movie with an audience. I have gone on record as stating that the American public as a whole is allergic to awesome, but my Crank: High Voltage viewing experience has renewed my faith in my fellow countrymen.

Before I close, I would like to give a post-dated “Fuck you” to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for failing to recognize the groundbreaking work of music legend Mike Patton. His score for Crank 2 is the weirdest and most rockingest soundtrack I’ve heard since Dario Argento lost Goblin’s phone number. It sounds like if Sergio Leone got signed to Anticon to record a tango/thrash/electro jazz album that got remixed by DJ Spooky to be the soundtrack to Todd McFarlane’s porno revamp of Tom & Jerry. So yeah, it’s a Mike Patton album, only it comes with a feature-length music video full of boobs and blood and occasional interludes by REO Speedwagon.

Seriously, what do I have to do, jerk you off on my chest? Go watch the fucking movie already.

Boardinghouse

The makers of Boardinghouse (1982) claim that it's the first-ever shot-on-video horror movie, and I tend to believe them because, like all pioneers, they clearly didn't have a fucking clue what they were doing. It looks and feels like somebody's high school project, provided the administration had a liberal nudity policy.

Boardinghouse has an admittedly amazing exploitation premise. It's about this poofy-haired blond L.A. hipster sleazebag (writer/director/producer John Wintergate, acting under the awesome pseudonym Hawk Adley) who buys a cursed house that kills everybody who lives in it. He then moves in and rents out all of the spare bedrooms to eight or nine chicks of variable hotness so he has his own harem. None of them seem to have jobs or social lives or anything, so all they do is horse around in the pool and hang out in the kitchen in their underwear. Every now and then, one of them takes her top off and hops into bed with him. They roll around for a while and he squeezes her boobs. The fact that one of these broads is played by Wintergate's wife lets you know a little more about their marriage than I think I'm comfortable with.

Did I mention that he's telekinetic? Yeah, he likes to sit around in his leopard-print bikini briefs and breathe real heavily while making stuff bounce around like it's hanging on the end of a fishing line. Which, clearly, it's not, because, you know, magic. Duh.

It took me forever to watch Boardinghouse. I don't mean it took forever to get around to watching it; I mean the actual watching process took forever. I watched it in 15 minute chunks over the course of three weeks, usually right before bedtime or just after getting up. Consequently, my memory of it feels more like a series of vaguely related dreams than a single unified work. The fact that its story makes no fucking sense whatsoever probably helps with that.

Here are some things things I remember, in no particular order:

1. There's an opening crawl that's supposed to be an FBI file or something.I think it's about the history of the boardinghouse (Why is it one word? Is it Dutch?) and it's written in awesome old-timey green computery letters on a black screen, and every now and again, they cut to...I don't know. Something. People dying of...something. Sorry, man, wish I could help you.

2. Wait, actually, it starts with an announcement that the film will be shown in HORROR VISION! which consists of a gloved hand appearing onscreen accompanied by some psychedelic Lawnmower Man computer graphics. This is intended to warn the more sensitive lunatics in the audience that something gory is about to happen. I only remember it happening once or twice over the course of the picture so I think maybe this idea got lost along the way. I don't think any of us are quite prepared to deal with the amount of blow that likely went into the production of this movie, so I guess we can forgive them for not sweating the small stuff.

3. Then I think somebody breaks out of a mental institution. There's no way to be sure but I vaguely remember somebody dressed like an orderly getting the mind whammy put on him and being forced to pull ketchup-coated sausage casings out of his shirt.

4. At some point, a hitchhiker stops by and gets thrown in the pool by the ladies, then he goes upstairs and get electrocuted by a hair dryer in the bathtub. He's never heard from again, but then one of the chicks is seen troweling in the garden. Suspicious? Your guess is as good as mine.

5. I'm pretty sure somebody flies one of those weird prop planes with the engine in the back. I don't know in what context, but yeah, I'm 95% sure that happened.

6. One of the chicks gets stabbed through the hand by a telekinetically controlled steak knife. It goes straight through her palm, probably severing a few tendons, but they just wrap a towel around it and send her on her way.

7. The blond dude is taking a bath when one of the chicks visits him in her lingerie and he impresses her by making a bar of soap fly around. Then he pulls her in with him and promises to teach her how to be a creepy New Age psycho like him.

8. At some point, I'm pretty sure there's an honest-to-God pie fight between a few of the ladies. Now that you mention it, I think Mr. Wintergate/Adley might be into sploshing, because there's another scene where a chick opens the fridge and gets a faceful of telekinetic yogurt.

9. Ooh, this is a good one. One of the chicks is taking a shower when suddenly blood starts leaking out of the cracks between the tiles, so she freaks out so bad that she mushes her boobs up against the glass shower door six or seven times instead of opening it. Then when she finally manages to escape, she looks in the mirror and she has the face of a pig monster, but when one of the other broads bursts in, the pigface disappears. Then they check the shower and declare that nothing's wrong, even though the grout is still stained red.

10. The blond dude is on the beach making out with one of the topless chicks in his stable when somebody clonks him on the head with a rock and she's like, "What the hell did you do that for?" Then she starts bleeding from the eyes and mouth and stumbles naked down the beach for a while before collapsing in the surf. Then the blond dude wakes up and is like, "Wow, that was weird."

11. Some cops stop by and investigate something. One of them is forced to shoot himself in the head at the end, that much I remember. I think one of them has a manilla folder.

12. Somebody goes to the library and narrates pointlessly about it. Actually, now that you mention it, I seem to remember that one of the chicks had a possessive ex-boyfriend who narrated pointlessly, too. What's with these movies that will just let any asshole off the street narrate them? Have some self-worth, movie.

13. Somebody has a dream...with some monsters...and a smoke machine...and maybe a hand under the bed...there might be a teddy bear voodoo doll in there, too, or that could be a different scene. This part's pretty fuzzy.

14. One of the chicks is in a band that plays at the house. They sound kind of like Joan Jett crossed with Berlin crossed with fetal alcohol syndrome.

Okay, now we've gotten to the final stretch, which I just watched last night, so its memory hasn't wiggled out of my grip yet. While the band is playing, the blonde chick with the trowel pulls aside the band's manager (a stereotypical showbiz sleazoid with a plaid blazer and a Rex Reed mustache) and starts making out with him and calling him Daddy. At first, you think it's just some skanky sex talk, but then she warns him not to go back to Mommy and starts going all demonic and shit. She stands in front of a light show stolen from the local roller rink and her face gets all distorted like a carnival mirror while talking like the Evil Dead and you BUG THE FUCK OUT because it's like the movie has lost its fucking mind. It's like some dude sitting next to you on the subway who seems normal enough but then he suddenly starts talking to you about how Puff Daddy and Jesus are really the same dude, after all, have you ever seen them in the same place? This scene kind of broke my brain. I remember all that shit I mentioned earlier, but I have no idea who these two incestuous motherfuckers are or what they have to do with the bordinghaus or why she has telekinetic powers that let her rip this doughy bastard's heart out of his chest with her mind. Then the blond dude walks in to explain everything. He's like, "Wait, your name is Dee! D is for Deborah! You're Deborah Hoffman!" And I'm like, "Who the fuck is Deborah Hoffman?" I probably should have paid more attention to that scene with the manilla folder.

Then the chick in the band shows up, and her and the blond dude give the evil broad the Care Bear Stare until some red computer graphics spill onto the screen. Then the movie ends, but first there's about five minutes of green-on-black computer text letting you know that the chick in the band got a record contract with RCA and the blond dude went on to be the system administrator for "Space Program." Not "the" space program. Just Space Program. That's what it's called. I'm assuming it's some kind of storage company.

I don't know, man. Boardinghouse was a long slog, but there was something hilarious in every 15-minute segment I watched, and that life-changing last scene made the whole thing worth it. And the cheap-ass keyboard score was pretty awesome. It sounded like somebody poured Mountain Dew into John Carpenter's synthesizer, gave him a glass of absinthe, and made him play the Halloween theme over and over again. And boobs are pretty cool, I guess. I have no beef with boobs.

I wish I could break it down a little more, but that's all I got, dude. Some works of art just defy analysis.