{"id":40052,"date":"2023-06-12T17:05:32","date_gmt":"2023-06-12T21:05:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=40052"},"modified":"2023-06-12T19:49:06","modified_gmt":"2023-06-12T23:49:06","slug":"bad-movie-monday-verotika-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2023\/06\/12\/bad-movie-monday-verotika-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"BAD MOVIE MONDAY: Verotika (2019)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve written at length about what makes a good<\/em> bad movie, but what makes a BAD bad movie? This is what I\u2019d like to talk about in today\u2019s review because I think I found the perfect example. Here is a movie that is so bad, so incompetent, so mind-numbingly lazy, that I can\u2019t just overlook its flaws and give it the benefit of the doubt like I normally would. This is a movie that is insultingly and aggressively terrible. Yes folks, I\u2019m talking about VEROTIKA.
\n<\/p>\n

Quick Recap! When COVID shut down everything in early 2020, I started an online bad movie night get-together with some friends that we eventually dubbed \u201cBad Movie Monday\u201d. The premise was simple: We\u2019d torture each other every Monday with the worst trash we could find, tell a few jokes, cheer each other up, and in the process maybe discover some weird obscure cinema that we might never have seen any other way. This series of reviews will feature highlights of those night, along with some of my own personal favorite trash, so you can all share in the fun and maybe get some ideas for your own movie night.<\/em><\/p>\n

Before I begin to eviscerate the film, I want to get a few things out of the way. Number one is that I derive no pleasure from this review. I\u2019m not smiling as I write this. Well\u2026 not much anyway. Number two is that I don\u2019t begrudge writer\/producer\/director Glenn Danzig for wanting to make a film. It was obviously his dream to become a filmmaker one day and I would never stomp on someone\u2019s dream. Number three is that I WANTED TO LIKE THIS FILM. I really did. This review isn\u2019t me trying to insult or slander Glenn Danzig. This is me giving an honest opinion about what a mess this is. You see, I often give a pass to bad movies, because they\u2019re made by people with no skills or resources or experience, but who are acting in good faith. So, as long as can see that they\u2019re trying, I\u2019m okay with the fact that they\u2019re making trash. Glenn Danzig does not seem to be trying. At least, not very hard, and there is no excuse for that. The man isn\u2019t some kid straight out of film school working on a $5,000 budget. He\u2019s been in the music business for 45 years. He has contacts. He has friends. He had a one million dollar budget! One phone call and he could have gotten some professionals to help him out, but what good is help if you don’t listen to anyone?<\/p>\n

By the way, in case you don\u2019t know this already, it\u2019s important to mention that Glenn Danzig is a rather legendary figure in music. He was the lead singer and songwriter for the horror punk band The Misfits, and then later the horror punk\/metal\/goth band Samhain. Finally, he formed the eponymous band Danzig whose first four albums are some of the greatest heavy metal music you\u2019ve ever heard. I feel his later stuff declined in quality, but he had a hell of a great run between 1977 and 1994. So I can\u2019t say enough good things about the guy when it comes to his music. When it comes to his filmmaking though\u2026<\/p>\n

Look, I have nothing but sympathy for how intense and chaotic a film shoot can be. Writing a film can be fun. Editing a film can be fun. However, filming<\/em> a film can be an absolute nightmare. Because you\u2019re always one mistake or instance of bad luck away from a catastrophe that can result in having to quickly rework almost every aspect of the movie that you just spent six months planning. Resulting in whole scenes that were meant to be shot having to be scrapped, new scenes having to be written to replace them, and everything that you\u2019ve changed having to fit with the footage that\u2019s already in the can. What\u2019s worse is that more often than not you only have a few days, and sometimes only a few hours<\/em>, to fix the whole debacle because you\u2019re on a schedule and the clock doesn\u2019t stop ticking just for you. Oh, and depending on how unlucky you are, this can happen more than once during the production of your film. However, that<\/em> is the nature of the beast. It can break even the strongest and most confident soul. It can be depressing and stressful and exhausting work that requires immense commitment. It\u2019s an art form that can be incredibly rewarding if you stick with it and do your best, but it\u2019s not for everybody, and the people who go into it thinking that it\u2019ll be easy are in for one hell of a shock.<\/p>\n

Enter Glenn Danzig.<\/p>\n

Verotika feels like Danzig spent most of the production going \u201cYeah, whatever, that\u2019ll do.\u201d after every take and THAT is what I don\u2019t like about this movie. He seems to have put zero effort into this endeavor. The film makes so many basic mistakes that I don\u2019t even know where to start. There are scenes where the camera\u2019s auto-zoom has been accidentally left on. There are scenes where you can hear crowd noise behind the characters. There are scenes where the actors don\u2019t know what to do because they haven\u2019t been given the proper direction. There are scenes where the camera wobbles. There are blatantly missing scenes. There are scenes that, very obviously, are unedited raw footage of the actor\u2019s entire take without any trims. At some point, the sheer volume of non-stop blunders stop being \u201cmistakes\u201d and start to be a larger sign of laziness and incompetence. I don\u2019t know what happened or why, and I\u2019m not going to hazard a guess, but at some point everyone involved in this stopped giving a damn.<\/p>\n

So what\u2019s the story Jeremy?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The film consists of three segments and a wraparound story. Let\u2019s run through them.<\/p>\n

MORELLA (The Wraparound)<\/p>\n

An anonymous terrified girl is strung up in a dark dungeon while a sinister woman named Morella walks towards her. Morella then slowly pokes the girl\u2019s eyes out, Three Stooges style, to which the girl reacts to by screaming \u201cMY EYES!!!\u201d which I suspect is something that many of the people who watched this turd were also screaming throughout the movie. Morella then returns to introduce each segment.<\/p>\n

THE ALBINO SPIDER OF DAJETTE.<\/p>\n

We open on a huge-boobed girl called Dajette having weirdly tame softcore sex with a guy, but because she has eyes instead of nipples the guy is horrified and leaves. This sexual rejection makes Dajette cry from her boob eyes, which brings to life a giant horny talking man spider who immediately starts raping and killing women whenever Dajette falls asleep.<\/p>\n

CHANGE OF FACE<\/p>\n

The second story in this anthology is about a stripper called Mystery Girl who literally cuts off and steals women\u2019s faces because her own face is covered in what looks like mild eczema. Well, I say<\/em> stripper, but she wears a thong and pasties and mask and a CAPE onstage. So she\u2019s not exactly stripping. To be honest I\u2019m not sure what the hell she\u2019s doing. She just twirls round and round and round the stripper pole, never takes any clothes off, and does this weird arm waving dance while glaring at the patrons. Seriously, if I saw a stripper do that I\u2019d be concerned, not aroused.<\/p>\n

This time there\u2019s almost a hint of a plot, as the police are investigating the murders. A lot of reviewers have said that the first segment is the best and that the movie goes downward from there, but I have to disagree and say that the second segment is actually the best. It certainly has the best acting of the three, and the stripping scenes are enthusiastic at least.<\/p>\n

DRUKIJA COUNTESS OF BLOOD<\/p>\n

The third segment is by far the worst of the three stories and perhaps the worst thing I\u2019ve ever watched in my entire life. I\u2019ll sum it up really quickly. We open in some vague medieval setting where a Queen called Drukija, who is basically like Elizabeth Bathory, kills peasant girls and bathes in their blood. That. Is. It. That\u2019s the only thing that happens. The other two stories, as thin as they were, at least had some token attempt at plot. This one feels like the entire script consisted of a post-it note with TITS written on it. It\u2019s shockingly empty.<\/p>\n

THOUGHTS<\/strong><\/p>\n

So, now that we know what the movie is about, we come to my favorite part of the review where I list ten thoughts I had while watching this trash:<\/p>\n

#1\u00a0 – No review of this film would be complete without mentioning the really really really really terrible French accents on display in THE ALBINO SPIDER OF DAJETTE, because this entire segment is taking place in France for some reason. It\u2019s like Glenn just showed his actors one of the Pink Panther movies and said \u201cDO THAT!\u201d Here\u2019s a pro tip Glenn: When you\u2019re working with actors who already find acting to be difficult, don\u2019t give them the extra challenge of an accent.<\/p>\n

#2\u00a0 – Not even fifteen minutes into the movie and it becomes obvious that nobody behind the camera knew what blocking was or establishing shots were. In one scene a character is shown running towards the right of the screen only to then cut to a scene of them running to the left.<\/p>\n

#3\u00a0 – When Dajette goes to a caf\u00e9 she encounters the world\u2019s most intense waiter. I don\u2019t know if the actor was nervous or if Glenn directed him to act that way, but holy hell man. Switch to decaf. I will say it livened up the segment though.<\/p>\n

#4\u00a0 – At one point in the first segment, we are shown the police trying to bust down a door in order to enter someone\u2019s apartment. However, it\u2019s obvious that the filmmakers only had one door to bust down because nobody thought of the fact that when you break a door in a movie you have to show it being broken from the outside AND the inside. Thus, you need two<\/em> doors at least.<\/p>\n

#5\u00a0 – The second segment, CHANGE OF FACE, arguably has the best acting in the whole movie. Sean Kanan, who plays the detective investigating the murders and face stealing, is very decent and a lot of fun to watch. He has a soap opera background so you can tell he\u2019s used to being thrown in front of the camera with no direction and no script. His professionalism was really appreciated.<\/p>\n

#6\u00a0 – CHANGE OF FACE also has some great dialogue. Well, maybe the word great<\/em> is pushing it, but it got some genuine laughs out of me anyway. At one point one of the cops tells the detective investigating the murders \u201cCause of Death. Apparent shock and loss of blood.\u201d and the detective goes \u201cNICE!\u201d At another point the detective wants to go backstage at the strip club where Mystery Girl works and one of the strippers blocks his way and goes \u201cWhere do you think you\u2019re going? No people allowed. There\u2019s naked girls back there!\u201d and the detective goes \u201cVery funny, there\u2019s naked girls out here too.\u201d<\/p>\n

#7\u00a0 – There is one fun little bit in the third segment, DRUKIJA COUNTESS OF BLOOD. The actress who plays Sheska (Natalia Borowski) is a blast to watch. She plays the character as being so overly enthusiastic about all the murder and mayhem that she has a borderline orgasm every time someone is killed. It\u2019s not much, but her performance helps make this dreary slog tolerable at times.<\/p>\n

#8\u00a0 – If I can give the film another bit of grudging praise, it\u2019s that the cinematography isn\u2019t as bad as you\u2019d expect. Many scenes in the film look almost good, as still images. They look terrible once you un-pause the film, but when no one is moving or saying anything there\u2019s a legitimately cool old school comic book vibe to the thing. Danzig was going for a Creepshow kind of feel and he almost pulls it off.<\/p>\n

#9\u00a0 – Wait, is that Caroline Williams in the DRUKIJA segment? Yes it is! She\u2019s literally only in one scene so I\u2019m guessing she had a bigger role originally and noped out of this mess. Can\u2019t say I blame her.<\/p>\n

#10 – Danzig also scored the film and assembled the soundtrack. It\u2019s, um\u2026 eclectic to be sure. However, I do have a certain amount of fondness for it. It\u2019s what the movie is trying to be. Loud, obnoxious, adolescent and in-your-face. It\u2019s the sonic equivalent of seventies boogie van with a naked chick riding a dragon painted on the side.<\/p>\n

Was it actually bad?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hell yes! It was awful! It was awful to watch once, and I had to watch this four times!!! It was like having to go back to the dentist for another root canal. This movie fails on several fronts, but the worst of which is that it is simply boring as hell. It is paced incredibly slowly and is way too damn long. When you\u2019re making a bad movie, proper pacing and length is essential. Even more so than if you were making a good movie. Don\u2019t have long scenes of filler. Cut out any scene where no one is talking for a long time. Stuff like that. You want your film to be tighter than a nun on a Greek vacation. It won’t improve your film, but it’ll make it more fun to watch at least.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve written at length about what makes a good bad movie, but what makes a BAD bad movie? This is what I\u2019d like to talk about in today\u2019s review because I think I found the perfect example. Here is a movie that is so bad, so incompetent, so mind-numbingly lazy, that I can\u2019t just overlook […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3070],"tags":[64,70,103,240,276,328,349,477,703,1008,1087],"class_list":["post-40052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-badmoviemonday","tag-adaptation","tag-adult","tag-anthology","tag-crime","tag-demons","tag-erotic","tag-fantasy","tag-horror","tag-mystery","tag-supernatural","tag-thriller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40052"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40052\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40065,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40052\/revisions\/40065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}