The Screengrab Highlight Reel: April 11-17, 2009

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 21:00:00 GMT

It’s not funny, you know. Sure, Woody Harrelson Launches Method Assault on Undead Photographer makes for a cute headline. But if you knew anything about the craft, you’d know that this sort of thing goes on all time when we actors get so deeply involved with our characters. Do you know how many natives Brando beheaded with a machete on the set of Apocalypse Now? Sure, Paramount covered it all up, but when you’re in Hollywood’s circle of trust, you hear about these things.

It’s been a bad week for Woodies all around, as you know if you read Woody Allen, Larry David and the Blackness of Eternity and How Much Is Woody Allen’s Good Name Worth? Let me ask you this: When is Woody Allen gonna make a zombie movie? About time, I’d say.

Anyway, that paparazzo is thinking of suing me, so I’m gonna go consult The Best & Worst Get Rich Quick Schemes in Cinema History (Parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five and Six). And then maybe I’ll get around to the rest of these:

Reviews: Lemon Tree, Sleep Dealer, State of Play, Grey Gardens, The Hemingway Night

The Screengrab Holiday Special , Parts One, Two, Intermission & Three

The Legend of "Him", the Lost Dirty Jesus Movie

Transported: The Jason Statham Think Piece

Yesterday's Hits: There's Something About Mary (1998, Peter and Bobby Farrelly)

Unwatchable #37: Bad Girls from Valley High

Unwatchable #37: “Bad Girls from Valley High”

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 18:00:00 GMT

Our fearless – and quite possibly senseless – movie janitor is watching every movie on the IMDb Bottom 100 list. Join us now for another installment of Unwatchable.

First let me tell you a little about the movie I won’t be telling you about today. As any loyal Unwatchable reader knows, occasionally the IMDb Bottom 100 list presents us with a stumper. As I consulted the list in preparation for today’s entry, the title at #37 struck me as vaguely familiar: Hababam sinifi 3,5. I checked the archives and sure enough, the originally scheduled title for Unwatchable #59 was Hababam sinifi askerde, an earlier installment in the Hababam sinifi series of Turkish comedies. Apparently there’s a hardcore band of Hababam sinifi haters in Turkey…which doesn’t really help my cause since these movies aren’t available in the U.S. However, I was able to find a few YouTube clips, and I like to think this one captures the essence of whatever it is that makes these movies so hateable:

With that out of the way, it’s time to find a substitute for Unwatchable #37, which I accomplish by consulting the current version of the Bottom 100 list and selecting the first title that does not appear on the list I’ve been working from all along. And that selection, as you already know, is 2005’s Bad Girls from Valley High. A promising title, you might agree, but alas…

Like the earlier Unwatchable The Smokers, what we have here is a “chick clique” flick that draws its meager inspiration from the likes of Heathers and its many imitators. The bee-yootiful Julie Benz (Angel, Dexter), a good decade too old for the role, stars as 17-year-old Danielle, queen bee of Valley Gorge High School. Her obligatory satellites are Tiffany (Nicole Bilderback) and Brooke (Monica Keena), the one with a sliver of a conscience. Danielle may be Miss Popularity, but there’s one thing she wants but doesn’t have: dreamy Drew (former child star Jonathan Brandis). Drew only has eyes for his girlfriend Charity Chase, until the day Danielle and her minions decide to put a scare into her and accidentally cause her to fall to her death.

A year later, the students of Valley Gorge High are still mourning what they think is Charity’s suicide, none more so than Drew. Danielle is ready to make her move on him, but she is thwarted by the arrival of Romanian exchange student Katarina, who soon has Drew emerging from his funk. Danielle plots to get rid of Katarina in similar fashion as Charity, but her efforts are hampered when she, Tiffany and Brooke begin to suffer from humiliating bodily breakdowns. Tiffany’s eyesight worsens, Brooke gets all farty and Danielle starts uncontrollably whizzing herself. The bad girls begin to suspect Katarina is actually Charity’s ghost, and that she’s put a curse on them.

Aside from providing humiliating late career roles for Christopher Lloyd (as a suspicious, accident-prone teacher) and Janet Leigh (as a comatose stroke victim – don’t ask), Bad Girls from Valley High is just the sort of dopey, barely competent high school comedy you’d expect to go straight to video after sitting on a shelf for five years, which it did. The suicide storyline is particularly queasy-making in retrospect, as co-star Brandis killed himself between the time of shooting and the eventual DVD release. I guess I’ll never know whether or not this is a worse movie than Hababam sinifi 3,5; that will simply have to remain one of the enduring mysteries…of the Unwatchable.

Previously on Unwatchable:
38. Chairman of the Board
39. The Invisible Maniac
40. Son of the Mask
41. Troll 2
42. Zombie Nightmare

The Screengrab : bad girls from valley high

The Screengrab Highlight Reel: April 11-17, 2009

Unwatchable #37: “Bad Girls from Valley High”