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SYNOPSIS:
Twenty-something STAN HELSING is a loveable loser, wannabe singer and video store clerk who works the counter in a second rate video store in Hollywood. It's Halloween and after a success in the degrading task of killing a giant six foot cockroach in the stall of a video store bathroom, he is given the assignment of delivering a video to his boss's mother on his way to a big costume party. Stan gets in a minivan with his friends. Teddy, a chubby African American dressed as Superman; MIA, a ditzxy blonde dressed as a native American. After they see a scary looking doll that strongly resembles the horror film character "Chucky" in the car next to them showing them his butt and a truck driver who looks like "Leatherface" from Texas Chainsaw Massacre tries to run them off the road, we realize they are in for a very strange road trip. Stan's motto in the middle of all of this is don't get involved.
MOVIE
REVIEW:
There are some movies that make you question how and why they ever got made in the first place, and “Stan Helsing” is a perfect example of that. Written, produced and directed by a certain Bo Zenga (who was apparently one of the executive producers of “Scary Movie”), it is an utterly meritless piece of work which belongs in the trash heap.
Here’s how we think Bo must have pitched the movie to his financiers- it’s a stoner comedy crossed with a road trip movie crossed with a parody of all the classic horror movies. And for reference, we think he probably made it sound like this was going to be an Apatow movie done the “Scary Movie” way. What may have sounded promising however turns out anything but.
For one, Bo doesn’t seem to have a single funny bone in his body- at least going by the appalling absence of anything resembling humour in the movie. Is a giant cockroach in the bathroom (a la “ Mimic”) of a video game store meant to be funny? How about two hippies peeping at people in the toilet who stop by their gas station to pee? Well, having a bunch of horror monsters (Freddy, Jason, Chucky, Pinhead and Leatherface) perform “Kill S-T-A-N” to the tune of “YMCA” does raise a chuckle, but that’s about all the laughs you’re going to get.
The dearth of any humour is coupled with a dreadful lack of any story. A late-night delivery that video clerk Stan Helsing has to make is the excuse for steering his bunch of friends to the Stormy Night Estates inhabited by these monsters. And what happens when they reach the place? Well, nothing much aside from running around like a bunch of headless hapless chickens. Yes, the relief when they finally emerge from said monster town is more deeply felt by its audience than the characters.
And where to begin with the characters? Stan is supposed to be the likeable stoner reminiscent of Jay and Silent Bob in a Kevin Smith film, but comes off foolish and idiotic. His best buddy, a fat black dude called Teddy, is just as daft. Ditto for the two girls on the ride with them- one only good for showing off her boobs and the other for acting dumb blonde. The film offers you no reason to care about any of them, and in fact one soon wishes that they’d be killed just so the movie ends.
Yes, even at 90 mins, the film is an excruciating torture to sit through, and a conundrum from start to finish of just what the filmmakers were thinking. As with Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg, Bo Zenga shows that he belongs in the same league of his two “Scary Movie” compatriots. But the most inexcusable of it all? Bo wastes one of the last appearances of classic comedian Leslie Nielsen in a tasteless role devoid of any humour. Avoid this like the plague
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SPECIAL FEATURES :
NIL
AUDIO/VISUAL:
Audio is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0, but the audio mix in this movie is- like the movie itself- awful. Picture is often grainy and coarse, but one suspects it’s a result of the low-budget filmmaking.
MOVIE RATING:
DVD
RATING :
Review
by Gabriel Chong
Posted on 9 April 2011
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