May 19…May 19…May 19…
Ah yes, back in early 2006, the date May 19 was endlessly pounded into the brain of every WWE fan. At first, it seemed to just be a goofy storyline involving Kane. Little did we know it would lead to something much more sinister. Something evil, something vile, something with no merit.
It would lead, of course, to WWE’s first feature film, See No Evil.
If you’re anything like me, you’ve come to hate the day May 19. When I think of it now, I think of it as the darkest day in the rolling year, the anti-Christmas in which Santa came bearing not gifts, but a horrid, putrid movie the likes of which the world should have never known. “As shallow as a toilet bowl and twice as rank as its usual contents,” wrote Nich Schager of Slant Magazine.
Thanks, Nich. Couldn’t have said it better.
Poor Glen Jacobs.
I mean seriously, this was the chance, the chance for both himself and WWE to break out into a new medium. And on paper, it actually sounded somewhat promising, as the idea was for See No Evil to be a horror flick featuring a ruthless killer. And when you look at the WWE roster, well…could you really pick anyone who’d do better?
I mean, just look at the guy:
Again, let me reiterate: the setup was perfect: a slasher movie featuring Kane as a villainous murderer. How could this have possibly missed?
Too many ways to count, I’m afraid.
Let’s get the obvious out of the way before I try to get through the 88 minutes of idiocy before me. First, let’s talk about the “director” of this fiasco. Now you’d think a guy by the name of “Gregory Dark” would be a perfect guy to run such a production. You’d think that until you actually looked at his resume, which consisted of primarily of music videos and porn.
You can almost picture it now, can’t you? Vince McMahon punching the clown to a smut film, and thinking, “Holy s***! This is the guy I NEED to direct the first film for WWE!”
As disturbing as that is, well…you know, I don’t know that anything is realistically more disturbing than that. I feel somehow wrong for even having written it.
I probably should go take a bath before further contaminating my keyboard.
Anyway, the cast sucked as well, as the only three that had any real acting credentials in the US are Kane (of course), Christina Vidal, and Michael J. Pagan.
Ever seen those names headlining a movie poster? Me neither.
Vidal? You might remember her as the cute little kid from Life With Mikey. Ok, you probably don’t. Which means you’re lucky, as it was a stinkbomb made in the midst of Michael J. Fox’s darkest depths of his carer. You know you’re in trouble when your tagline is “He’s a talent agent. She’s a thief. Looks like they’ve already got something in common.” At one point, it was in fact, on the 50 worst movies of all time according to IMDB members. Yes, up there with the likes of Santa with Muscles and Troll 2 and Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2. When you’re mentioned in the same breath as Superbabies, seriously…how on earth would you ever find work again?
Speaking of Baby Geniuses 2…who the hell greenlighted THAT?
Like Vidal, Pagan also had his big moment as a child actor as well, starring in How Stella Got Her Groove Back. After that and a few smaller roles, he decided to take a break from acting and go to High School. Well, I can say all I want about Michael, but at least he had the right mind to go to high school and get a diploma. Good call, kid.
Now that I have gotten that out of the way, I shall review the movie, which starts in a trailer park, complete with cockroaches.
Yes, the very first thing you see after the very first time a WWE Films logo appears on the big screen is a TRAILER PARK.
Sometimes the jokes just write themselves.
Anyway, it’s not long before we see a young boy locked up in a cage made of shopping carts. We’re not even one full minute into this film, and I’m more depressed than I may have ever been in my entire life.
And it’s not because we live in a country where social services allow parents to keep their kids trapped in a shopping cart cage, but rather because when people steal those carts, honest folks like myself have to pay for it in higher prices. I bet that jar of JIF would only cost like 99 cents if horrible parents weren’t stealing carts to use for cages for their bratty kids.
Cue the cops, who come into a house, finding blood all over the walls, and a shrine to Jesus. Maybe it’s just me, but I’m thinking that my Lord and Savior really didn’t want this type of cross-promotion. Especially when the next thing we see is a shot of a girl screaming, he face covered in blood. And then an officer getting an axe to the back of the head by Kane, aka Jacob Goodnight.
Actually, we wouldn’t know who he was, because the people responsible for this film decided that it wasn’t important to tell us at all his name and only once saying his name Jacob toward the very end. So if you’re not an IMDB junkie, well, I guess you’d just call him Kane. Or maybe Choppy McAxe.
Because he likes to chop things up, you see. For instance, soon enough he lops another officer’s left arm off. Should have got ’em both, because the guy fires off some hot lead right into Kane’s head, which turns back the monster and forces him to retreat. And then, we get the payoff to the initial horror as we get to see the woman’s face.
Well, her face with no eyeballs left in the skull.
Lovely.
It should be noted that as reporters hit the scene, one of them mentions that the surviving officer’s name as Officer Frank Williams. One can only wonder if this was the same Frank Williams who was Roddy Piper’s very first guest on Piper’s Pit. I bet that would make the film more enjoyable, so let’s just pretend that he is.
Our erstwhile jobber turned law enforcement agent enters the ambulance which fades to a white drawer with an alarm clock going off. A prosthetic hand comes up and turns the alarm off. This would be the prosthetic hand of Frank Williams, now four years removed from the gruesome crime scene.
Then he takes a piss.
Seriously, he takes a piss.
So let me get this straight, this bonehead director cuts the only scene that mentions Jacob Goodnight by name, but keeps in the part with the one-armed man taking a leak?
Anyway, we soon someone – though we don’t know who – looking at a newspaper that talks about Frank Williams getting a new job with the police as a helper of troubled youths.
And when we say “troubled youths”, we mean it; these are convicts at the county detention center.
In fact, let’s have a roll call.
We have Russell Wolf, who received stolen property.
Wait, he just received it? That’s a crime? What if he didn’t know it was stolen? What if someone left a VCR on his front porch in a baby carriage?
Poor Russ.
Richie Bernson is in the klink for computer fraud, which I can only assume means that he sold someone a Wang and told them it was a Dell.
And here’s Christine Vidal, portraying Christine Zarate, who is in prison for aggravated assault.
Did she learn nothing from Marty McFly?
Zoe Warner: shoplifting.
I say, Zoe Warner: prostitution.
Not because she’s hot, but rather because she looks like her coot’s carrying around all kinds of STD’s.
Michael Montross is here for possession with intent to sell, assault and battery.
I was really confused, because when I first saw this, I just saw “intent to sell battery.”
I thought this meant it was somehow illegal to sell Duracells.
The brunette with blonde highlights? That’s Kira.
Sheesh, how many people are in this stupid movie?
Well, there’s also Tyson, breaking and entering, possession…
…and Melissa, she of “reckless endangerment”.
Maybe it’s just me, but this is the most attractive group of jailbirds I’ve ever seen.
Seriously, it’s like if the models at Abercrombie & Fitch wound up on a chain gang.
So all these kids are on a bus, and they arrive at what apparently was once the Blackwell Hotel. I say “apparently”, because the sign now reads “Blackwell Ho el.”
I didn’t listen to much of the commentary, but I was amused to hear Kane saying that the missing T would play a significant part later in the movie.
I can only assume that Clarence Mason and Ahmed “Big T” Johnson are somehow involved.
Remember when they owned the letter “T” back in WCW? Boy that was dumb. Still, all would have been forgiven if we got a payoff of the Sesame Street gang making a run-in.
So Frank and the kids go inside and meet an old lady named Margaret Gayne, who shows them around. Turns out the inside is even worse than the outside, but she has a plan: turn this dump into a homeless shelter.
Turns out that’s why the kids are there.
So the kids start “cleaning” the place, which seemingly consists of making fun of each other, smoking weed, wearing nicer clothes than any “troubled youths” I’ve ever seen, and eating potato salad.
I bet the Big Bossman is doing cartwheels in his grave looking at the “hard times” these kids are going through.
Anyway, we get various shots of someone looking through holes in the walls at these goofballs.
Between their constant bickering, stupid one liners, and endless primping (seriously, these chicks spend more time showering and shaving their legs than they do cleaning up that dumpy hotel), I cannot possibly be the only guy cheering for Kane to show up and start hacking away.
Soon enough, that’s exactly what we get, as the big red (well, in this flick, GRAY) machine throws a meat hook through one guy’s leg, then slams his carcass against the wall. Not sure why, precisely, he had a meat hook, but if it gets rid of these annoying little brats, I’m all for it.
Sadly, it’s not just the kids that get it, as soon some middle aged lady also bites the dust, courtesy of Kane slamming her head into the ceiling of the elevator.
Just in case we thought the mass amounts of blood weren’t gross enough, he digs his finger into her eye socket and pops out her cornea.
He then plops the eyeball into what is either:
a) a jar of Canada Dry
or
b) a jar of urine
I’d make a joke about how either way it’s a losing proposition, but have you ever had Canada Dry?
It’s not only fizztastic…
…it looks totally rad under a blacklight.
Thank you, Wikipedia.
And also thank you, nameless, uncredited bong smoker who came up with the idea to illuminate a bottle of Ginger Ale with a black light.
I’ll pass on the weed, my hemp smoking friend, but I do so wish I had your excessive amounts of free time on my hands.
While Kane is killing most of the folks in this film, some suffer a much worse fate: namely, being captured and put into cages.
Jeez, dude – if you want to start a petting zoo, get some goats or something. I bet they’d be far less annoying and would probably do a better job of cleaning up after themselves.
So Kane goes for the kill on one of the chicks, only to discover she has a cross tattoo on her back.
Well, they SAY it’s a cross, but I’m thinking it’s probably just Undertaker’s symbol.
(And you really had to be around in the late 90’s to truly appreciate that joke.)
You know, if I’ve learned one thing from all the slasher flicks I’ve watched over the years, it’s this: never have sex.
Seriously, name the last characters you saw in one of these films actually filling up the jimmy hat. Never happens.
Again, if you’re ever on the run from a meat hook wielding freak, remember:
ABSTINENCE = KEY TO SURVIVAL
Not sure why these serial killers are so anti-sex, but whatever the case, Kane feels the same way, and disposes of them.
Eh, the world was a better place without those two procreating anyway.
And so on and on it goes, with Kane killing and plucking out eyeballs left and right. After way too many gruesome murders, it’s revealed that Kane is actually the old lady’s son!
You know what would have been better? If Kane would have unmasked and revealed himself to be the old lady.
Not sure what it says about this film that I can improve it by stealing ideas from Scooby Doo, but it’s not good.
Kane does the big face turn, turning against his mother.
Why?
Don’t know.
In fact, by the time Kane impales her into a spike sticking out of the wall (remind me to never have that guy do my interior decorating), I was pretty much wishing it was me, just so I would be done with this stupid movie.
But hey, if you thought the big face turn was the end, well, no such luck. No, we get more killing, and then kids hammering on Kane’s skull, which causes worms to crawl out of it.
Why, exactly, Kane has a head full of WORMS is never explained.
Not that I’m dying to know or anything.
All I do know is that by the time Kane falls out the window and gets his eyeballs impaled, I’m overcome with joy.
So, umm, yeah, this movie sucked.
Still, I am longing for a sequel.
Why, you ask?
Because before the film became See No Evil, the working title was, no joke, Eye Scream Man.
Seriously, Eye Scream Man.
Come on WWE…I need See No Evil 2: Eye Scream Man on the marquee at the Showplace 16.