I don't know about you, but there was a part of my life, albeit short, where Twisted Sister was just super cool. Then when Dee Snider appeared in PEE WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE... well, ya just couldn't get too cooler, so Dee decides to go the Horror route, and according to this fella it's terrible. But hey... that's just one opinion. People are saying they either... 'kinda liked it' or 'ewwwww', so let's see where you end up...
STRANGELAND
Ladies and gentlemen, Twisted Sister member Dee Snider would like to introduce you to the future of horror. In fact, he's so confident in his creation (he wrote the pathetic script), that he's played the villain himself: he's Captain Howdy. Yes, that's right. Captain Howdy. Pretty scary, huh? If you think the name is stupid, then you have keen perception. It's not, however, any stupider than the movie is.
To be honest, Captain Howdy does do a lot of creepy things in Strangeland, a movie produced by the independent company the Shooting Gallery (who have understandably taken their name off the credits). He pierces his own skin, pierces and mutilates other people in horribly disgusting ways. But most of all, he makes the audience wish he would shut up. There are so many times in the film where he drones on, endlessly giving mind numbing monologues. The movie may be eighty minutes long, but he makes it feel like three hours.
The film follows its villain(Snider), who looks like a pumped up Marilyn Manson, as he lures young girls in chat rooms on the Internet into his home, whereupon he then tortures them with all sorts of crazy body piercing. In the beginning of the film, we see him lure the daughter of a cop (Kevin Gage) into his house of horrors, sending the police after him. When the cop and his partner (Brett Harrelson, brother of Woody) eventually capture him, Captain Howdy is found not guilty on the plea of insanity.
Four years later, Captain Howdy is freed from the funny farm, much calmer and looking like a cross between Norman Bates and Granny on The Beverly Hillbillies. After some redneck locals (led by Robert "Freddy Krueger" Englund) destroy his medication and try to kill him, Captain Howdy is sent on a rampage again, torturing people and giving even more terribly boring monologues.
Loud, disgusting, unjustifiably mean, and with no concern for important things like logic and plot development, Strangeland is the kind of thing that causes people to hate horror movies. It thinks that the more over the top or violent it gets, the better it'll be for the viewer. Instead, it has the reverse effect, making the viewer wish he had stayed home. If it weren't such a brutal film, it would be perfect fodder for the smart alecks on Mystery Science Theater 3000.
The script by Snider is absolute nonsense. Things are shown onscreen for no reason, while important plot developments aren't shown. The direction by John Pieplow tries to be stylish, but instead becomes irritating. In terms of the acting, it's almost as atrocious. Gage is boring as the cop trying to find the killer, while Harrelson proves that acting talent isn't an inherent trait in his family.
Elizabeth Pena makes a brief appearance as the cop's wife before taking her paycheck and laughing all the way to the bank. Robert Englund appears in the film as a perverted, drunken redneck, and uses it as an excuse to overract. Badly. None of these performances are as bad as Snider is, however, being the film's most negative factor. His performance as the villain could be the worst of the year, beating out even Sean Connery in The Avengers.
In conclusion, Strangeland, as a film, represents everything that is bad about horror films and the horror genre in general. Even die hard horror fans will hate it, unless they've got a strange urge to watch a man's reaction as he has his scrotum pierced.
