You're Tearing Me Apart, Grandma

It's no secret that I love any story centered on the elderly, particularly if it involves murder. Title your film "At Granny's House" and throw it in the basement of Amazon Prime and I'm there. 

Quick Plot: Marion is an elderly* widow living alone in a roomy house that worries her busy workaholic son. To help prevent any dangerous falls, he hires an in-home caretaker then, it would seem, flees the country, never to be seen again.

*Age looks different on everyone, but Marion seems pretty spry for someone who talks about quartering soldiers during "The War"

At first, Marion is a bit cold towards Rebecca, the enthusiastic IT professional-turned-home-health-aide pushing a decaf and oatmeal lifestyle on her charge. They warm up to each other quickly, and soon, Rebecca has Marion convinced that what they really need in their life is to let wandering strangers spend the night in the guest room via "myfreebed.com". 

Sure?

Why, you might ask, is Rebecca so eager to meet financially challenged travelers? Don't ask the movie, which doesn't really have an opinion on the matter. She's bored by the first visitor, a pleasant musician, but the next one to come along commits the cardinal sin of talking on his cell phone during a conversation and well, that means murder!

And that's what happens? A few more individuals pass through. Some leave safely, while others--those who dare answer a text--meet the wrath of Rebecca via the wrong end of a poisoned needle. Marion seems to not notice any of this. 

Things get a tad more complicated when the Steiners stop by. Ted works in IT (cue the instant chemistry) while Linda is between nonprofit jobs. Ted immediately wants to bone Rebecca, while Linda might want to bone her phone. You know how this goes!

Ted joins Rebecca down her homicidal path, convincing Marion that Linda has left him. Marion seems to have no issue with her paid health aide suddenly taking a live-in lover, but when he steals the TV for Seinfeld reruns during her newshour, it's clear that this arrangement won't last long. An investigator shows up shortly after because, shocker, everything points to this house being Linda's last known location and believe it or not, people do actually notice it when someone they know disappears off the face of the earth. 

I realize I've given a lot more detailed a plot description than I normally do for reviews, but there's a reason for it: this movie's story is bizarre. At Granny's House is sort of what The Room might have been if Tommy Wiseau was an actual human being of this earth. There's a lot of sex (involving the writer/director Les Mahoney as Ted, no less) and no clear consistency in character motivation whatsoever. The movie also seems to take place in some slightly alien setting slightly left of our reality: set somewhere in the midwest in a state that has the death penalty, but also in a reality where IT professionals wouldn't think to adjust their IP address when murdering DOZENS of people who have an internet profile directly connecting their last stop as this graveyard of a house. 

There's a lot going on here.

As Rebecca, poor Rachel Alig has to play a bloodthirsty woman who has no center whatsoever. She hates cell phones but loves Ted, a slug of a man who I guess is just really good in bed? Glenda Morgan Brown seems up for the challenge of Marion, but like Rebecca, the movie can't decide what's going on in her head. Is she really losing it? Is she faking slight senior moments to regain control? If she's really as much a sociopath as Rebecca, why put up with Ted stealing her chair at all?

I'm asking a lot of questions. There are dozens more that go unanswered. And honestly, that's something that will keep At Granny's House in my memory longer than many a less-than-stellar genre film. So I can't say this gave me nothing!

High Points

Credit to the cast: they certainly try

Low Points

I've said enough about the actual quality of the movie to now address the REAL issue at play: nowhere in this film's scant running time do we see or hear evidence that Marion has grandchildren, SO WHY IS THIS CALLED AT GRANNY'S HOUSE? Not since Orphan: First Kill have I been so angry at a movie's choice of title words

Lessons Learned

If you hire people every day, you should know better to call an applicant "a pretty girl" during her interview

People who get nonprofit overseas jobs fall off the grid and ignore their friends and families alllll the time

Nothing will bond two generations of women closer than a shared enjoyment of "The Oprah Magazine"

Rent/Bury/Buy

At Granny's House was clearly made by clipping a whole lot of coupons. It's not traditionally good in almost any sense, but those who love tilting their heads at character decisions with a "huh?" moment of utter confusion will surely have a good time. Find it streaming on Amazon Prime!

Only a Birdemic Could Cause True Shock and Awe--I Mean, Terror

Every now and then, a film comes around that is made with such ineptitude and yet released with expensive fanfare that the Internet has to pause and say “Did you SEE that?” 

We remember The Room. And now, we will never forget you, Birdemic: Shock and Terror. Writer/director/possible insane in a really happy way James Nguyen has done something...special.

Quick Plot: Superstar software salesman Rod catches sight of Natalie, an old high school crush turned fashion model--not just a fashion model, a BEAUTIFUL fashion model who assembles her portfolio out of shoots done at a One Hour Photo. 

After about 45 minutes worth of dating--complete with double dates to great movies like An Inconvenient Truth, a visit with Natalie’s real estate dreaming mom, bar dances to autotuned lip synching and a romantic evening in Victoria’s Secret cover girl Natalie’s Days Inn apartment, the pair awaken to discover the world is being ATTACKED BY EAGLES.

Don’t you hate it when that happens? One day, your company has just been bought out for millions and your proposal for solar energy has instantly earned another $10 million in funding. You’ve re-met the girl of your dreams (whom you took English with in high school and yet still ask where she’s from) and there’s a pumpkin festival to boot. Life is great.

And then there are Atari caliber birds pecking townspeople’s faces off.

So yes, at a certain point, Birdemic makes good on its Hitchcockian references to go all out birding. Natalie and Rod luckily team up with another couple, this one well-equipped with clothes hangers, machine guns, and a van ideal for grabbing fellow survivors. Soon to join the crew is a pair of horridly obnoxious and always hungry children who really just want some Happy Meals. The group grows and shrinks due to some hilariously failed rescue attempts, toxic bird poop, actors who quit filming halfway through and spectacular stranger encounters, including a random admitted tree hugger with the world’s greatest wig. He has to go though, because he hears a mountain lion. But it was nice meeting you!

Sigh. Birdemic is truly something special, something that, much like Unborn Sins, just doesn’t come around often and really, shouldn’t. The more Birdemics we get the less exciting they are, because when you think of it, ANYBODY can make a movie. It’s the scale at which that anybody fails--and ironically enough, succeeds at getting it distributed in such a way where it seems real--that makes something like Birdemic or The Room a treat. I’ve rented awful amateur films before, as have many daring horror fans, but Birdemic’s all-out enthusiasm and obliviousness makes it the kind of event you have to witness.

Take, for example, the extended opening credits sequence wherein a car drives ever so slowly down a long country road. Nothing overly offensive about it, save for the fact that a) the music has about six bars and loops over and over again for nearly 6 minutes b) that the non-lead actors are listed as “Supporting Casts,” as if there were multiple groupings and c) that the actual driver was actor Alan Bagh who, according to the commentary, was holding up traffic by following the Nguyen’s direction to take things slow. It’s just one example in 90 minutes of more that shows a certain brand of innocent and optimistic moviemaking at its wors--I mean, finest.

Lessons Learned

Contrary to Joan Crawford’s mantra, wire hangers do have a purpose

Bratty kids are always hungry and quite picky about it

You never know what can happen in life. You might start off as a software engineer and end up, a SALES MAN!

Just because there are swarms of killer birds flying in the sky is no reason to not enjoy the outdoors with extended picnics, games of catch, woodsy number twos or fishing expeditions

Sometimes an apostrophe can go wherever it wants, whether it belongs there or not. Hello, Dream Model’s!

In order to fight global warming, we should act as astronauts. Or something

Victoria’s Secret lingerie is so comfortable, you won’t ever want to take it off...even when sleeping

Rent/Bury/Buy

Had Birdemic been intentionally made as badly as it is, the film wouldn’t be worth your time. However, having now listened to director James Nguyen’s commentary (and following a painfully honest one with stars Bagh and the much brighter Whitney Moore), I’m pretty sure that this was a film made from the heart...and really misguided brain. It is terrible, and therefore, awesome. Lines don’t get better than “I’m really hungry. I’ve been under the car for a long time,” “Gotta get back to work. You know, sensual work” and “Hey! There are dead people on the side of the road, let’s see if there are any survivors.” The sound drops out more than boobs appear in Showgirls, the effects are less impressive than a kindergardener’s popsicle stick picture frame and the politics more earnest than Al Gore at an open mike poetry slam, and man, it’s all amazing. The DVD includes a bevy of special features, including the aforementioned honest commentary from the lead actors who do indeed point out just what kind of a film they discovered they were making following their auditions in a high school parking lot. It’s THAT kind of movie.

And it's spectacular.