There's nothing bad about this movie! Are you kidding? It's the funniest movie of 2007. And of course, when I say that, I'm kidding. It came out in 2006. Normally my love of independent movies would lead me to defend studios that dare to make independent horror, but in the case of "The Asylum" the name of the studio says it all, and trust me, they deserve every snide remark they get. Now where do I being to describe the cinematic masterpiece that is Intermedio? From the beginning, when two guys decide to bring their four year old children on a drug deal, we know we're in for a great ride. The characters in this movie display such an utter lack of human common sense and intelligence that at some point, you've got to wonder if it's intentional or if the filmmakers are simply that inept. Personally, I think they're just that inept. Why else would they display such a lack of understanding of Spanish that they have a character say "The El Intermedio" more than once? For the uninitiated, "El" means "the," making it highly unnecessary (and extremely hilarious) for a character to say "The El" ANYTHING.

Proving that a lack of common sense runs in the blood, the aforementioned children, all grown up now, not only decide to return to the underground tunnels where their fathers disappeared to participate in a drug deal, they ask their friend who has a broken foot and crutches to come with them and she agrees. Obviously the stupidity here is not just hereditary, it affects everyone in the movie. Soon the fakest CGI ghosts I've ever witnessed show up and begin dispatching people, and while the characters are running through the tunnels being stupid and dying one by one, the audience abandons the question of "what's the point?" and begins enjoying the hilarity at hand. Here, let me summarize the good parts for you so you won't ever be forced to view the actual film.

"Someone who doesn't want what's in to get out." Um, no, I'm pretty sure whatever is in can get out by unlocking a door if it's locked from the inside. And that wasn't just me nitpicking a typo or minor mistake when the characters meant to say "outside" but accidentally said "inside," they actually were observing a door locked from the inside at the time the exchange took place. And the dialogue just keeps getting better and better. At one point, two characters are talking loudly in front of an injured guy on the floor and one of them says "There's two of us left" I guess at that point they had decided to leave him. How rude.

But lest you think the scriptwriters got all the fun, the special effects people had their hand in the festivities as well. One of the ghosts frantically moves his head out of the way as a trapdoor slams down. Perhaps he hasn't graduated ghost school and thus doesn't have the ability to move through solid objects. Not to be outdone, the editors contribute and we get some unintentional nudity when Edward Furlong is crawling through the tunnels and his pants come down. One expects that he put a "no nudity" clause in his contract and thus expected them to use another take, but these filmmakers aren't classy enough to do that. And while some of the actors appear to be trying their best, others appear to be deliberately sabotaging the already bleak proceedings. Halfway through the movie, Edward Furlong suddenly turns into the worst actor I've ever seen, overacting to the extreme and swinging his arms and gesticulating wildly for no apparent reason, because things haven't gotten THAT bad yet. This movie has to be a spoof. It HAS to be. Or maybe Furlong overheard the editor's plot to keep his nudity in the movie and this acting is his revenge.

Predictably, characters who have treated each other like shit and acted like they hate each other throughout the entire movie so much so that we wonder why they're friends suddenly start crying and saying "I love you" once things get really really bad. Normally I'd say that such sentimentality feels forced and detracts from the movie, but this is THIS movie we're talking about here; the more ridiculous, the better. Later, two characters state that they are "trapped" in a room, but when one of their friends gets killed they suddenly spring to action, move a refrigerator out of the way, and walk through a door that was behind the refrigerator. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but doesn't "trapped" mean there IS no way out? Or were they just waiting for the friend to die so they could escape unhindered by his injured ass? Their compassion for each other is stunning. And in further escape news, the same escape-challenged people stand in a room where there is clearly a door on one wall and claim there is no way out. They then re-arrange the dead bodies on the floor and then lay on the bodies and reminisce about their childhoods (um...dead bodies are soft like mattresses?) Until a killer pops up in the room and they scream and then escape out the door that's been there the whole time. Maybe we weren't supposed to see it? I saw it, I just thought they must have tried to open it before deciding they were trapped. I should have known better. Have I told you enough? Do you see why "Intermedio" is either the unsung comedic gem of 2006 or a horror movie you should avoid at all costs?

While at some point you'd surely be tempted to yell at the screen "You can't just have a flashback without announcing it's a flashback! The colors are exactly the same, we didn't know what the fuck was going on here for at least five minutes!" or "how can someone "drug" a can of beer while it's still sealed?" But in the case of this movie, such uproariously funny moments make the whole excruciating experience worthwhile, and you should just sit back and enjoy the ride.

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