------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Overall Rating : 3/10
Directed By : Bo Zenga
Steve Howey (Still Waiting...)
Diora Baird(The Texas Chainsaw Massacre : The Beginning)
Kenan Thompson (Saturday Night Live (TV) )
Desi Lydic
Supplied By : Anchor Bay Entertainment
Film Reviewed By : Rick L. Blalock
Date Reviewed : October. 28, 2009
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| PLOT In the story, hapless video store clerk Stan Helsing and his friends must make a routine video delivery on Halloween night before going to a Halloween party. But when a chain of seemingly random mishaps strand Stan and the gang in Stormy Night Estates, Stan learns of his true destiny as a descendant of the legendary monster-hunter Van Helsing. With his motley band in tow – including his best friend Teddy, he will battle evil in the form of parodies of movie monster icons “Freddy,” “Jason,” “Leatherface,” “Pinhead,” “Michael Myers,” and “Chucky”! The ultimate confrontation between good and evil will require immeasurable courage, grim determination – and a flair for karaoke?!? | ||||
| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ||||
| THE REVIEW Just when you thought the spoof movie craze was finally dying out, comes from the Producer of SCARY MOVIE, STAN HELSING, another spoof effort that this time, takes a stab at parodying the popular slasher sub-genre of Horror. In STAN HELSING, we follow the film's namesake, who is a store clerk and the local Schlockbuster Video on Halloween night. On this night, Stan Helsing, along with best friend Teddy and two female friends, Stan's ex-girlfriend Nadine and ex-stripper, Mia are planning to celebrate the festivities by going to a party, but first they must make a pit-stop to deliver some videos to Stan's boss's mother's house. Realizing that their destination, the town of Linwood, is in the opposite direction, they make a detour. Along the way, they run into some strange occurrences, all which have a striking resemblance of a popular Horror film. Well, eventually, the four find themselves in a strange town known as Scary Night Estates, A town that has lived in fear ever since a fire wiped out the entire community, it has since been plagued with the hauntings of various monsters, those that closely resemble movie monsters such as; Michael Myers, Leatherface, Pinhead and Jason. TO stay save, the town has basically tried to secluded themselves, counting on old folklore that a Van Helsing would one day come along to save them from the town's bad luck and demons. Sooner or later, it becomes clear that there is more to the town's weird fascination with on Stan Helsing, not only does he closely resemble the legendary monster hunter Van Helsing, by some miracle, it turns out that Stan happens to be a direct descendant of him. With the town behind him, and a new found courage, Stan leads his friends into battle against the monsters that the town of Scary Night Estates fear. Remember when the first SCARY MOVIE was released back in ? At least then it was something new, and dare I say even creative at the time. These days, the spoof film is as common as reality television. We have had films such as DISASTER MOVIE, SUPERHERO MOVIE, and MEET THE SPARTANS all of which I failed to see after seeing the disaster that was DATE MOVIE - since then, I have avoided everything "spoofy". So when I received this new film from Anchor Bay, STAN HELSING, I thought i'd give it a shot, but mostly on the grounds that one of it's stars is Diora Baird, who I find gorgeous. But Diora aside, there was little else that caught my interest, not even the cute little mock ups of the likes of Freddy and Jason. I'll be perfectly honest here, I really did try to enjoy myself here, and i'll admit that for at least the first 25 minutes, I was going along with it, even though the jokes were the dry brand of comedy. Some of the jokes were funny, but after awhile of hearing them, it was like hearing a kid tell a joke, that was yes, initially funny, and because of this the kid keeps on and on trying to gain the same reaction, the humor got quite boring, even tiresome. STAN HELSING is nothing new, personally, I think if you've seen one "modern" spoof film(excluding classics like AIRPLANE of course), you've seen them all, the offer nothing original, what you expect to happen in STAN HELSING is exactly what happens. In the film, the slasher films that are parodied are not taken seriously and certain events from the films are recreated, but in "funny" ways(that are not so much.) The villains themselves are even taken lightly, in ways such as arming Leatherface with a leaf blower(that needs a plug), having Freddy dress and act "hip-hop", having Michael Myers wear a yamake, and of yeah there's even a guy dressed as Chucky with a tick-tac-toe board carved in his face.....oh boy! I would say that STAN HELSING is probably aimed towards a younger teen audience, but I don't think that they or anyone would find most of this film even the least bit funny. Like with everything else, I do suppose that STAN HELSING could've been better if handled differently, but I truly don't know. I went in looking to find any kind of enjoyment here but by mid-film, it was clear to me that this was yet another stale comedy attempt, so dry, that at times you could almost tell that the cast themselves were bored with the material they were dealt. STAN HELSING, might have a bright spot here and there, but that's not saying much when there could have been possibly many more. |
||||
| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ||||
| GORE
METER 1.5/10 All I seem to remember was a few wounds and scratches, nothing major. |
||||
| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ||||
| MUSICAL
SCORE 2.5/10 Just you typical mock-up suspenseful scoring. |
||||
| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ||||
| OVERALL
IMPRESSION OF THE FILM Honestly, my only reason for wanting to see this film was Diora Baird as I previously stated, but not even she could improve this one. the idea behind this film is tired and the jokes are for the most part not even mildly funny once you've heard a few them, this is one that most would likely only want to see once, as there really isn't much to deem memorable about STAN HELSING. And oh yeah, on a side note, Ken Kirzinger the Actor/Stuntman whom portrayed the REAL Jason Vorhees in FREDDY VS JASON is in this film portraying the fake Jason(here called "Mason"), and is basically lampooning the role.......something Kane Hodder would never do. | ||||
| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ||||
| STILLS | ||||
|
