There’s two kinds of people in this world.
Those who love bad movies and those who don’t. And by bad movies, I mean movies that theoretically, logically, rationally should be so awful that you can’t endure sitting through them in their entirety, yet you can’t help but stay glued to the screen throughout, because of the awesomeness on display.
BVB: Blood Violence and Babes loves bad movies because often those are the films that show the most moxie. They proudly fly a middle finger in the air to traditional cinema. They take risks and even when those risks fall flat, you can’t help but marvel at the brazen balls it took to even make the attempt.
Bubba the Redneck Werewolf is just that kind of film.
Based on an independent comic book from the mid-1990’s, and coinciding with the comic’s 20th-anniversary release, the feature film adaptation of Bubba the Redneck Werewolf is ridiculous fun. It’s a B-grade, drive-in movie that’s a lot more intelligent than you expect. It’s sprinkled with blink-and-you’ll-miss sight gags and loaded with whip-smart dialogue.
It was also made for less than $100,000.
Let that sink in for a minute. (Then consider this — James Spader, whom we love, made $160,000 per episode for the second season of The Blacklist.)
The creative team behind Bubba — director Brendan Jackson Rogers and writer Stephen Biro — put every penny on the screen.
Sure, Bubba the werewolf, as far as special makeup effects go, looks like the long-lost hillbilly cousin to Teen Wolf (the Michael J. Fox version, not MTV).
And granted, some of the humor is so juvenile that you almost feel guilty for snickering.
But damn if there’s not a smile on your face throughout the film’s brief runtime.
Don’t believe us? Here’s a sample.
The dog pound where Bubba, the human, works is called Barkham Asylum. The manager reads a magazine called Hogs on Hogs, which is nothing but photos of pigs on motorcycles. And its main office is decorated with various motivational posters – the kind with photos of mountains, the ocean or cute animals along with an inspirational saying.
Only in Bubba the Redneck Werewolf, each poster says the same thing – [Blank] is working hard – as in, “Beauty is working hard.” “Nature is working hard.” “Dolphins are working hard.”
You have to freeze-frame the film in order to make out what each poster says, but it’s well worth it.
Or this brilliant blast of dialogue between Bubba, as a werewolf, and a crusty old bar patron while they’re discussing how Bubba’s girl Bobbi Jo keeps shacking up with other guys in the back of a rental car.
“The American Automobile Association is not to be trifled with,” the bar patron drawls, “but I don’t believe gang bang is part of the roadside services described in the manual.”
To cure his conundrum, Bubba, the human, sells his soul to the Devil in return for being transformed into “the most badass bad ass” in all of Broken Taint, FL (which is located in Cracker County, just FYI). He wants to have hair and muscles and be loved as a hero and, and most of all, win the heart of his beloved Bobbi Jo. The Devil sweetens the soul-buying deal by throwing in a smokeless ashtray and a four-slice toaster oven. Naturally, he turns Bubba from human to werewolf, satisfying the wish for more hair.
But the Devil isn’t content to just buy Bubba’s soul. He goes across Broken Taint playing nasty devil tricks — such as luring residents into an Endless Yummy Buffett, which is then revealed to be a bar that plays Endless Jimmy Buffett — and stealing souls while transforming the citizens into freaks of nature, such as a chef who wishes he had more hands to cook faster who suddenly sprouts a third arm from his forehead or the guy who wishes to be “The Batman,” as in the dark knight vigilante hero, so the Devil drives a baseball bat through his mouth out the back of his head.
Everyone turns to Bubba, the werewolf, to save the day, which he tries to do as long as he’s not busy punching through people’s skulls or devouring the torsos of the bad guys he defeats.
Make no mistake, Bubba the Redneck Werewolf is silliness personified, but it thoroughly understands its genre and wisely plays to fans who will appreciate its subtle asides and over-the-top gags.
If you loved Wolfcop — and boy howdy, BVB loves Wolfcop — then you owe it to yourself to seek out Bubba the Redneck Werewolf as soon as possible. Crack open a beer, check your brain at the door and settle in for the fun.
Bubba the Redneck Werewolf
Genre: Horror/Comedy
Directed by: Brendan Jackson Rogers
Run time: 80 minutes
Rating: Unrated
Format: DVD
The Stuff You Care About:
Hot chicks – Yes.
Nudity – Yes.
Gore – Considerable.
Drug use – No.
Bad Guys/Killers – Satan, man, that wicked old devil.
Buy/Rent – Buy it.
Released – October 11, 2016
Speaking of money not well spent, and we’re talking the kind of money that could literally transform some third-world community into a bustling metropolis, were you one of the fans clamoring for more ID4?
If so, congratulations! Director Roland Emmerich has rewarded you with IDBore.
Seriously, in a season packed with high-dollar Hollywood studio blockbuster bombs, Independence Day: Resurgence may be the lamest, laziest, most inscrutable sequel ever made.
I mean, even Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising — a movie about bong hits and brotherly hazing — found a way to creatively and rationally expand its universe and develop significant character depth so that the sequel didn’t just feel like a cash grab.
Not Resurgence, which doesn’t even bother to try and explain how in just 20 years since the first alien invasion, the United States has completely mastered alien technology to develop a massive outer space defense initiative, which includes colonizing the moon and figuring out how to make fighter jets fly in zero gravity.
What the effing hell?
The ragtag freedom fighters we loved so much in the 1996 original, well, most but not all return for the paycheck. Ex-President Whitmore (Bill Pullman) is a paranoid shell of his rah-rah-speech-giving former self. David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum) hops from Earth to the moon and back to investigate possible alien activity. His dad, Julius (Judd Hirsch), is touring retirement centers and assisted-living facilities, trying to sell his book, How I Saved the World.
Even the actor who wisely bowed out of the sequel — Will Smith, yes sir, that was a good call — is still represented by a giant portrait and a now-grown son, Dylan Hiller (Jessie T. Usher), who is — surprise! — also a fighter pilot, only he has zero charisma and none of Smith’s indelible charm.
And then, just for the hell of it, Emmerich introduces a brash, young, strapping hero in the form of Liam Hemsworth, who disobeys orders, nearly blows up the moon and somehow never looks frazzled. Of the Hemsworth family stable of actors, Liam is my least favorite, but for some inexplicable reason, Hollywood really wants the public to embrace him.
Worst of all, there’s, like, next-to-no alien action for the first 30 minutes or more. And when something finally does get blowed up real good, it all feels like an undercooked rehash of Emmerich’s greatest hits.
Here’s the kicker, folks: Fox spent $165 million dollars to make this movie.
Let that sink in for a minute.
They made a $165-million-dollar turd.
The studio can just write off the loss. But you, dear viewer, you aren’t as fortunate. You spent up to or more than $10 a ticket to be lobotomized by a movie that only exists to make money and not to entertain. Or you forked over $25 or more for the 3D Blu-Ray or 4K high-definition disc to own forever.
Who’s the real dummy here?
Between Independence Day: Resurgence, the new Ghostbusters and The Legend of Tarzan, Hollywood suits ponied up nearly $500 million this past summer to finance less than six hours of total screen time. And if you’ve seen all three films — and BVB, sadly, has suffered through all three — then you know just how little actual quality or originality they received in return.
When you compare those figures to the paltry amount that funded Bubba the Redneck Werewolf, it just doesn’t make sense.
We have to start demanding more from the people who think they can just spoon-feed us crap without encountering any backlash. We have to stop buying tickets based on nostalgia. The movie world needs more Bubba and a lot less recycled, remade and/or rebooted wannabe blockbusters that are destined to collect dust in the discount bin at Walmart.
We need to rise up and let our voices be heard loud and clear — Give us something original or give us nothing at all!
Independence Day: Resurgence
Genre: Sci-Fi/Sequel
Directed by: Roland Emmerich
Run time: 120 minutes
Rating: PG-13
Format: 3D Blu-Ray
The Stuff You Care About:
Hot chicks – No.
Nudity – No.
Gore – No.
Drug use – No.
Bad Guys/Killers – The Hollywood system.
Buy/Rent – Neither.
Released – October 18, 2016
For a complete rundown of all new releases for October 2016, plus movie news, interviews and more, visit BVB online at Blood Violence and Babes.com, like us on Facebook @BloodViolenceBabes and follow us on Twitter @BVB_reviews.
