"Junior"
Reviewed By: Giggles

1 butterknife (or -5 outta 5)

Junior. Oh how many ways can I describeth how much this movie stinks? The natural impulse is to simply leave it at a point-blank "Man, that movie was fuckin' dumb," but there are so many more ways to squeeze the suck-juice out of a film like this. Let's just hope I have the endurance, for both our sakes. And if you're worried about spoilers, believe me, you're suffering from a misapprehension. There's nothing in this film that takes you by surprise and the only question you're left with at the end is: What was I thinking? The DVD box looked so cool. So don't worry. Be happy if you haven't seen this movie.

Our story starts out with two women, of undisclosed European origin, who have decided to go on vacation. They're proximity is a little too close, their kisses a bit too long, their hugs too tight. They've got it for each other, indeed, and if this would have been a pressing development in the movie, the review you're reading would be a whole lot different, I'd image. Bottomline though, two characters are a bad number for a Horror movie, especially those who keep you guessing their accents. Are they: English? Germanish? Italianos? Spaniatardos? Belgiums? Frenchians? We won't ever know, goddamn them anyway.

This actress, Cecilia Bergquist, who plays Rebecca, is actually quite fetching when she isn't in goofy lesbian mode.

On their way to the vacation (I think they mentioned they were going "diving" or something) the girls listen to "The Cutting Edge" by A Split-Second. Never in all my imagination have I ever pictured two women listening to metal in a car without a male present; I'm sure it happens but let's be realistic, okay--- it only happens to butch lesbians.

Plus, I'm not sure I can even stick butch lesbians with a band like this one. A Split-Second sounds like a collage of cheap overdrive distortion riffs married with a frontman who sounds like Rob Zombie and Yosemite Sam's lovechild. Here's a copy of it to download. I found myself listening to it more than once just because my ears refused to believe what they were hearing.

A Split-Second renders some of the most disturbing grimaces in recorded history, and I'm not only talking about facial grimaces; these guys actually make your an entire essence grimace: body, heart, soul, willpower. Not to mention that you suffer from at least two hernias as the rest of you melts away.

The girls stop by a gas station and Rebecca goes in for a coke. Evidentally one coke costs a Euro. Damn, if Euros are equal to more than a dollar, Rebecca is getting robbed blind, but oh well... she more than deserves it for enjoying A Split-Second. Anyhow, we come to learn that this gas station attendant has a rather vicious dog locked up (a door in the back of the shop pounds furiously). There is no question that this dog is the Tusken Raider-looking fellow on the cover of the DVD case, and we hope he'll be doing some killing fast to make up for such a long introduction.

The Europolesbos leave in the Jaguaresque Daimler.

Soon they have engine trouble, and it's just as well because they're lost anyway. Sandra decides to walk back to the gas station for help and Rebecca, looking like Sporty Posh, stays behind with the car. A very suspicious looking individual comes by from the gas station (we're thinking Texas Chainsaw Massacre) and fixes the piece-of-shit car. Sandra doesn't come back and Rebecca goes looking for her. And this leads to the movie's largest downfall.

Rebecca becomes stranded again because the engine ceases once more. But she hears a bumping noise on the roof of her car. Suddenly she's pettrified, but she hasn't seen anything scary yet. For all she knows, some pigeon decided to end it all by plunging into the roof of a Daimler (that's how I want to go). Now, this moment is an opportunity for genunine suspense, but the film decides to drag the "car scene" out for half an hour before we actually get to see Junior, the killer.

See this. Imagine watching this shit for twenty minutes and you'd get only a partial idea of how boring this scene really is. Junior sits on her roof and beats out rhythms and shakes the car over and over and over and over. And over again. And again. Again. Once more. Again. When she--- AGAIN. When--- AGAIN.

When Rebecca finally she finally gets out of her car, she doesn't bother to look up on the car's roof, and why not? Right? I mean, there's a potential here to drag out the shitty-ass pacing even more. Rebecca, instead, runs to a nearby fence (and not the farmhouse out in the distance--- go figure) and calls for help from a passing car.

I always thought that Americans were cold and impassive when it came to being good samaritans, but I guess people are hateful pigs everywhere you go. This bitchy blonde, while cute as button, is giggling, enjoying her euro-life, when she sees Rebecca calling desperately for help.

Her boyfriend wants to help but she has him pussywhipped so hard, he continues to drive on, leaving Rebecca to her own faculties.

"Move on you little-cocked sonuvabitch! If you want this tawny puntang, you better put the pedal to the floor. I'll be damned if we're letting a brunette in this car."

Rebecca returns to her car. The last thing we wanted her to do. We will now see Junior shake and beat the roof several more times. At least he seems to be having a good time up there. Maybe the filmmakers should have let us see a little of him pounding away. It would have broke up the sad-sad repetition of seeing the frantic, stupid Rebecca sway one way and then the other.

FINALLY. Bloodshed. Well, actually it's only red jello mix, but it will do.

Sandra's head comes rolling off the car, but we're still too dizzy from the car-shaking for it to be interesting to us.

Junior has a pick-ax on the DVD coverart, but what the hell, that knife's a doozy. Some people call it a Slingblade, I call it a Kaiser blade.

When in Europe, don't get a sunroof because Junior is sure to get you. One thing to note here, during the chase, Junior does some Kung-Fu acrobatics off the car. At once we realize that the Junior character deserves a better movie.

So from here on in, the movie turns on the automatic pilot. Rebecca is abducted and tied up in a dimly lit dungeon. The suspicious man who fixed the Daimler so profficiently, has been revealed as Junior's father and Rebecca is going to be made into some sort of morbid birthday present.

The bitch from the car was also abducted (Junior and Senior's killing business is very lucrative on weekends).

Junior slits this girl's throat and then proceeds to chop her head off. As an audience, we're not exactly desensitized as we are indifferent by the act. This is the point of the movie where we start clock-watching like kids on the Friday before Christmas Vacation. And you know the film has to be bad if that knife can't save it. Look at that cotton-pickin' thing!

Senior pets Junior's head. "Good boy," he says soothingly. "That's a good boy." At this point I was hoping Junior would bite the hand that feeds him, kill Rebecca, get in the Daimler and commit suicide when he turns on the CD player and hears A SPLIT-SECOND!

Senior's plan is to dress Rebecca up in Junior's mother's dress, in order for Junior to exact revenge on somebody who's already dead. Rebecca tries her best at the maternal-love technique that Jason Voorhees always falls for so damned easily. It works, but Senior ruffles Junior's feathers and foils her plan.

I suppose if you want to waste your time with the movie, I'll leave out the absolute ending, but it isn't anything you can't conceive of, neither is it anything original or worthwhile.

I will say that by the end of the movie, the film proffers a scene that shows a couple of fresh-meat candidates, and once the scene diabolically cuts, it is immediately followed by the credits, which are accompanied with a particular theme song I'm trying my best to block out.