"Curse you and you're trained exploding sharks!" - Joker to Penguin in BATMAN: THE MOVIE

MY NAME IS SCOTT FOY & I PAID TO SEE THE OMEGA CODE

NOTE: If you haven't seen THE MATRIX REVOLUTIONS yet then you may want skip this first paragraph because while it really doesn't contain any specific spoilers it may still reveal just a bit too much for you.

I was one of the special people who experienced the "Zero Hour" opening of THE MATRIX REVOLUTIONS. In South Mississippi time the "Zero Hour" was 8 am Wednesday morning. Like many people, I was rather under whelmed by the various lengthy soliloquies on the nature of existence occasionally interrupted by repetitious computer assisted kung fu battles that was THE MATRIX RELOADED so going into the grand finale I was cautiously optimistic the franchise would get back on track. Much to my delight and surprise, I rather enjoyed the series finale. It turns out in the end THE MATRIX franchise was all pretty much a cyberpunk, fetish wear, kung fu retelling of the story of Jesus Christ with Keanu Reeves as our Savior, "The Source" as God, Agent Smith as The Devil, and The Oracle as an annoying, chain smoking Buddha who constantly answers every question by telling you that you already know the answer to that question. Okay, perhaps I'm wrong about that last part. Well, at least the Buddha part. For all of the pop psychology psychobabble, in the end it's more New Testament than New Age. I suspect that's probably going to annoy a lot of viewers even though the writing was already on the wall back in the first movie. There's nothing wrong with cyberpunk, fetish wear, kung fu Jesus in my book even if he is portrayed by an actor who has single handedly done more for the word "Whoa!" than Joey Laurence ever could. Imagine if the Bible featured superhuman kung fu battles between Jesus, his apostles, Lucifer, and his minions. Church attendance would sky rocket and Christian movies wouldn't be so damn nauseating to sit through. And the Pope, oh man the Pope, he would be like one of those cool bad ass Shaolin monks like you see in a Shaw Brothers movie. Oh well, THE MATRIX has officially come and gone. Time for everyone to find something else to declare the greatest thing since sliced bread then turn on it on a dime. I'm still waiting for the LORD OF THE RINGS backlash to fully kick in.

EL CHUPACABRA SUCKS GOATS
(AND I'M JUST TALKIN' ABOUT THE MOVIE!)

Somewhere in Hell on the shelf containing Satan's movie collection between the 6 hour extended edition of GHOST DAD and the unedited European cut of SEXTETTE I'm convinced one will find a copy of the audition tapes for the movie EL CHUPACABRA. The mere thought that the people hired to star in this movie were the best thespians the producers could find is virtually inconceivable and that also means there were worse actors who auditioned for the movie, which is even more inconceivable. To think there may have been people who didn't get hired for the film because there line readings were sub-par to those hired is simply unfathomable. I know I have a bad habit of overdoing the hyperbole when laying into a truly awful film but sometimes it is richly deserved. In the case of the movie EL CHUPACABRA, no amount of over the top hyperbole could truly convey just how bad the acting in this movie is. As a matter of fact, words alone cannot possibly convey just how bad the acting in this movie is and the only way for one to truly comprehend how bad the acting is in this movie is for one to actually watch the movie. Unfortunately, that would require you to actually watch the movie. Again, I assure you, I'm not just overdoing the hyperbole. Here's an actual quote from IMDB regarding the thespian skills of the film's stars.

"…And the "acting" -- well, its another non-Screen Actors Guild horrorama in the casting department. Too many of these ultra-low budget horror films are made today with non-SAG actors because the cheapo production companies don't want to pay actor residuals and the result is 70 minutes of unwatchable filler."

"Unwatchable filler?" I wouldn't quite go that far although this site's webmaster would probably agree seeing as how he cringed when I played some of the movie for him while we grabbed some stills for this review. He did in fact say, "This is just unwatchable" at one point. Again, I wouldn't go quite that far because while the movie is more than a little atrocious the non-actors non-acting is so off the charts atrocious it's morbidly entertaining in a train wreck sort of way. I found myself more interested in seeing whether or not the attempts at acting in the next scene would be even worse than in the preceding one. They were.
Is such a thing as anti-acting possible?

We'll get back to that shortly. I'm sure there are probably a few of you out there who have never heard of the chupacabra. Let me quote from the OCCULTOPEDIA website:

From the Spanish for "goat sucker", an alleged creature that is supposedly responsible for draining the blood and/or removing the organs of mammalian and avian livestock. The name comes from the creature's earliest attacks in Puerto Rico where goats where completely drained of blood.

The monster is described by most as being bipedal - some say it walks, some say it flies, and some say it has a kangaroo hop - and around four feet tall, weighing an odd seventy pounds, having a spiked crest, with a round head, greenish-gray fur, large pointy spikes on the back, tailless, huge red eyes devoid of lids, lipless mouth, fangs and claws.

There have been numerous sightings of Chupacabras in lower North America, Central and South America, starting in the early 1970s (some even say 50s and 60s, although it has been "formally identified and baptized" only in 1994). There is a lot of speculation about its origins, the most popular theory being that the creature or creatures are from outer space, left on earth by aliens for some unknown purpose. Others claim that the Chupacabra is an American Army genetic experiment that went terribly wrong.

EL CHUPACABRA isn't the first movie to be made based on the supernatural creature. Troma released a movie called LEGEND OF THE CHUPACABRA that was patterned after THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT and with about as much budget. I've never seen it but I hear it's pretty awful. I have endured BLOODTHIRST: LEGEND OF THE CHUPACABRAS and hated every second of it. I hesitate to even list it as a chupacabra movie since the actual monster has pretty much nothing more than a cameo since the flick is basically another in a long line of no-budget vampire movies. You can find the link to my nail spitting review here. There was even one from Mexico I got my hands on which was also pretty hard to sit through and I'm convinced that I would have still felt that way even if it had been in English or subtitled. Perhaps one day I will talk more about that one but I'd rather not. There's a reason why Mexico isn't known for effects filled genre flicks.

And perhaps one day someone will make a movie about the chupacabra that doesn't suck goats but unfortunately that time doesn't appear to be coming anytime soon. It sure as hell won't be found in this movie. To call this movie crap is like saying Hitler was merely an unpleasant person.

The saddest thing of all is that that unlike countless low budget monster movies these days that feel compelled to use cheap crappy computer effects (I'm talking about you, UFO Films!), EL CHUPACABRA relies on a good old-fashioned midget in a rubber monster suit and frankly it's actually a pretty decent creature suit. Admittedly it looks much better in close-up than it does from a distant and the budget wasn't there to allow the creature it's famed leaping abilities so it often gallops along like, well, a midget in a rubber suit. Okay, to be honest, on more than one occasion while watching the movie I found myself thinking this is what Gollum would have looked like if Roger Corman had produced LORD OF THE RINGS. Still, its closer to looking like the chupacabra of cryptozoological fame than in any other chupa movie I've seen.

Here's the rather simplistic plot to EL CHUPACABRA. A mad scientist who hopes to turn the chupacabra into some sort of military weapon has captured a female chupacabra but the male escaped. Actually, from the looks of things the mad scientist's assistant let the thing escape or just got stupid and forgot that in order to keep something captive inside the back of a truck you have to remember to keep the door closed. So now the male chupacabra is loose in East Los Angeles gang country and it begins killing animals before moving up the food chain to people. Meanwhile, the local dogcatcher, who himself tends to act like an excitable puppy, teams up with the world's least convincing anthropologist to hunt down the Mexican monster. Nobody else believes there's an actual chupacabra on the loose as the official line is the victims were all animal attack victims. Leading the police investigation are two cops who both need some serious anger management sessions. Also, the mad scientist's mad assistant is in pursuit of the creature. He always seems to show up at exactly the right moment just after the right moment (No, that wasn't a typo either) and ends up having to cover his own tracks as well. And somewhere along the way someone offered a $5 million reward for anyone who is able to capture an actual living chupacabra thus inspiring every Latino stereotype in the film to go goatsucker hunting. From there, people are killed, insults are hurled, acting is attempted, scenes are stretched, and very little of interest occurs. But at least there's a very sweaty midget in a latex goblin suit! That's always a plus!

But if you need a perfect example of just how hackneyed the script is, then let me simply describe the logic used in one of the movie's earliest scenes. The film's heroine (Much more on her in a moment) is at a bookstore holding a signing for her new book about chupacabras when another character shows up and begins outright insulting her for believing in such a creature. She then stands up from her table and exchanges words with the rude man who just insulted her right to her face. Mind you, she does this in a voice that only sounds slightly annoyed (Again, chalk this up to the actress' thespian skills) and without the use of physical threats or use of profanity. The guy then walks off leaving her standing there in a huff. Along comes the bookstore's manager who proceeds to call the author a troublemaker and asks her rather forcefully to leave her store. Okay, so an author was invited to sign novels of her new book at a local bookstore only to be publicly insulted by a person who came into the store for no other reason than to publicly insult her and for standing up for herself she's told to vacate the premises? That's almost as illogical as believing a bookstore would actually hold a signing for a chupacabra book?

Did I mention that the book just looked like a random encyclopedia volume with black & white, xeroxed drawing of a chupacabra taped to the cover?

But I digress.

As I said earlier, the acting and I only use the word "acting" because, well, there really isn't any other word I know of to describe what the people in this movie are doing or at least attempting to do. Lines of dialogue are recited. Facial expressions are made. On a few rare occasions there's even a change of inflexion in their voices. However, this is not acting. My God, this is not acting! I dare say the acting in EL CHUPACABRA is so abysmally amateurish it actually transcends the medium and crosses over into the realm of anti-acting, assuming such a thing can even exist. Well, I guess one shouldn't be surprised when non-actors are hired to non-act but this is ridiculous. I swear there are numerous scenes where the people seem to be trying to remember their lines causing awkward hesitations in their line deliveries. Seriously, are these people really the best on the cheap non-union thespians the filmmakers could find?

Since the acting in EL CHUPACABRA is so far beyond awful I will not name the names of the (ahem) actors (cough) starring in it for their sake of their own careers. Instead, let's just talk about the characters they bring to life.

Navarro - He's the world's most excitable dogcatcher. Imagine an animal control officer in desperate need of an extra strength dose of Ritalin. In fact, he seems more than willing to go out in pursuit of the goatsucker even before he fully believes such a thing could exist. In fact, he's willing to work round-the-clock shifts investigating this case at all hours of the day and night. Only once is he shown at home and lucky for him work followed him home that day. The guy playing Navarro comes across like he should be the stand-in for Danny Nucci on that new ABC cop show 10-8. This is not a good thing. He really seems like an "Aw, shucks" kind of guy. This is also not a good thing. Amazingly, the guy playing Navarro only succeeds at being the 2nd worst actor in the movie and believe me that is an amazing feat considering I've heard better line readings in a kindergarten Christmas pageant.

Dr. Goodspeed - Okay, I will name the actor playing Dr. Goodspeed. It's hip-hop artist Treach in a role that won't make Ja Rule lose any sleep. Apparently Treach was unable to get a gig starring opposite Steven Seagal and so he's been relegated to appearing in a z-grade monster movie. I don't know whether casting a hip-hop artist as a twisted scientist is a stroke of casting brilliance or idiocy. The reason I can't answer that question is because the all-around anti-acting makes it impossible to judge his performance with any sort of measuring stick. He should stick to his mustic career, that's for sure. Maybe it's just me but Treach's Dr. Goodspeed looks like he could be the gay younger brother to the Principal Wood character from the final season of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer.

Mason - Dr. Goodspeed's assistant. Looking at this guy it appears Dr. Goodspeed created him in an experiment designed to combine Film Threat editor Chris Gore with shock jock Mancow. Not surprising, the offspring of such a coupling is not the sharpest knife in the drawer but still smarter than any other character in the movie. He apparently has an agenda all his own but this doesn't become apparent until the end. As bad as all the characters are in this movie, Mason is the least interesting and yet the movie concludes with a threat of a sequel that would seemingly be based quite a bit around him. Um, no thank you.

Detective Noriega - He's a cop. He's Hispanic. He's got a major chip on his shoulder and a total bitch of a partner by his side. He really seems to have a problem with dogcatchers as he constantly frowns upon Navarro and his pathetic Animal Control badge. It would appear that he's in the process of training his partner because whenever they investigate a corpse or other evidence he speaks in such a technical manner like Sherlock Holmes would to Dr. Watson. Noriega wants to be a bad ass cop like the kind you see on The Shield but I don't think you'd ever see Vic Mackey deal with someone he doesn't like by putting him in a headlock and giving him a full contact noogie.

Noriega's partner - I forget her name (Sophia, I think) not that it's important. She looks like a Hispanic Tina Fey and acts like she's suffering from a serious case of penis envy. She loves calling people either "dirtbags" or "scumbags" and pulling her gun whenever she feels insecure. Essentially, she's Noriega's attack dog with a very loud bark and a very big gun masquerading as a female cop but still dumber than a bag of hammers.

Starlina Divide - Oh my God, where to begin! First of all, her character's name is Starlina Divide! Oh, hell no! That's the kind of name you give a character who is a porn star or a stripper or a hooker or a superhero or a singer. That is not the name of an anthropologist/cryptozoologist. Would you buy a book about the chupacabra that was written by someone named Starlina Divide? Okay, maybe you would. But would you take it seriously? And I really don't think you'll come across too many anthropologists/cryptozoologists who wear giant hoop earrings like she does throughout the entire movie. I know I exaggerate a lot but I swear to you I'm not exaggerating when I say that if bad acting was considered a means of torture then this woman could be charged with crimes against humanity! Amnesty International would have this movie banned! Even simple lines where she's doing nothing more than reciting facts about the chupacabra come out sounding stilted and unconvincing. One scene requires her to do nothing more than angrily tell a cop "Don't touch me!" and yet it comes out sounding like it would coming out of the mouth of a drunken Paris Hilton if some guy not up to her standards tried to hit on her. The scariest thing of all is that looking her up on IMDB this "actress" has more credits than anyone else in the cast. Of course, the overwhelming majority of these movies are of the Cinemax After Dark variety. Actually, I believe they are more of the Showtime After Dark variety including a role on an episode of Red Shoes Diaries 11 years ago. Perhaps the woman just isn't use to being cast in roles that require dialogue…or clothes? That may also explain the giant hoop earrings too.

I once incurred the anger of current Scream Queen Debbie Rochon for describing a truly awful performance she gave in the movie BOG CREATURES as being "sub-porno level" acting. Having experienced EL CHUPACABRA I now realize just how bad acting can get. I would still say Rochon gave a terrible performance in that film but it was nowhere in the league of the lady in this movie. This gal gave a "sub-porno level" acting performance. This is the absolute bottom of the barrel. This is anti-acting. Debbie, if you're out there and you're reading this, I am so sorry.

There are a few other characters in the film too, mostly worthless. The majority of them are just Latino stereotypes. Since the movie is set in a neighborhood of LA that is predominately Hispanic gang territory there's no shortage of extras and superfluous characters that seemed to be waiting for the Strike Team from The Shield to come bust them. The standout amongst these characters is Navarro's clearly insane cousin who at one point stands in his backyard with a freshly harvested animal organ and proceeds to smear some of the blood on his face while challenging the chupacabra to come and get him. Unfortunately for him, it does. Unfortunately for all of us, this leads to Navarro's Oscar clip where the guy portraying Navarro stretches his virtually non-existent acting skills to the breaking point. Like the Incredible Hulk pulling a Stretch Armstrong doll in half, that breaking point comes instantly. Come to think of it, that scene also nearly brought me to my breaking point as well.

And how can I go on without talking about the world's most pissed off animal control supervisor? Navarro has a boss, who happens to be, well, the world's most pissed off animal control supervisor. Jeez, this review has me repeating myself. It seems the rookie animal control officer's banshee of a boss isn't happy about being nothing more than an administrator in charge of the city's dogcatchers. Either that or she just insists on running her department with an iron fist the likes of which has not been seen since the fall of Communism. When Navarro disobeys orders, like continuing to investigate the chupacabra attacks, or fails to turn in some paperwork on time she goes from being mildly unpleasant to being an acid-spitting civil servant she devil. During one of these fits of estrogen fueled fury, she fires him, forces him to strip off his uniform right in front of her, and then angrily states a line of dialogue that will forever be lodged in my psyche. "Never fuck a fucker, Navarro, you only get fucked!" First of all, I have no idea what the hell that even means. Secondly, how does not turning in a form on schedule constitute fucking a fucker?

Now that I think about it, since Navarro has been investigating this case night and day with a city vehicle perhaps maybe he's running his overtime up to astronomical levels and… No, I don't think that constitutes fucking a fucker either.

As the film speeds towards the closing credits, idiocy surmounts idiocy in head scratching abundance.

The end begins as Dr. Goodspeed sits at his desk inside of the currently empty research facility with his assistant Mason talking about how they will soon have the male chupacabra in their possession. He is convinced it is going to seek out their lab to rescue the female chupacabra. In fact, he's so convinced of this that he repeats several variations of this same statement. At no point does he ever state how they plan to capture or subdue it once it arrives. He just keeps saying that soon the male chupacabra will come to them and then it will be in their possession. I guess he just expects it to show up and turn itself in or something to that effect. No matter because seconds later he looks up and sees the male chupacabra staring him right in the face just before it kills him. As the male chupacabra chows down on the hip-hop star in a white lab coat, the female chupacabra looks on with approval. As best I can figure it, all the while Dr. Goodspeed sat at his desk repeatedly stating that the male chupacabra would be in their possession without ever stating how they would capture it, the male chupacabra broke into the facility, rescued the female, and sneaked into his office for a surprise ambush. Also not explained is where Mason magically disappeared to during all of this.

Apparently you can get information confirming top-secret classified scientific research by simply calling up the building it's being performed in and talking to someone in the accounting department. At least that's what Starlina does to find out where they need to go for the third act. I swear I'm not making that part up. Navarro, armed with a tranquilizer pistol, and Starlina, dressed in the least appropriate monster hunting apparel ever put to film, arrive at the lab and immediately know they are in the right place because the chupacabra has been kind enough to leave behind several random pieces of bloody flesh on the sidewalk outside. Navarro quickly locates the unlocked side door of the facility where top secret research is conducted and enters the building followed by the fearless female chupacabra hunter who appears to have gotten confused and thought she was going clubbing that evening.

Never wear a cocktail dress to a monster hunt.

Inside they quickly find Dr. Goodspeed's corpse and discover that he had set the building to self-destruct in 15 minutes. Oh, did I gloss over that part a moment ago? Sorry. It's not your typical self-destruct system as instead of exploding (Hey, if you can't afford real actors you damn sure can't afford a ball of fire!) the building will instead fill up with poison gas. According to Dr. Goodspeed's logic, filling the place up with cyanide qualifies as destroying he facility and will help cover their tracks once they take off with the chupacabras. Funny, you'd think fumigating a building with cyanide gas would arouse just a tad more suspicion than if they simply burned the place down or blew it up, but then I'm not a scientist.

Then Detective Noriega and his partner show up guns drawn. Despite having refused to even conceive of the possibility that the chupacabra could possibly be an actual living creature, Noriega suddenly declares that he's going to capture the thing alive and get the $5 million for himself. His partner doesn't look overly pleased but she's not about to disobey her master. Noriega moves up from headlocks and noogies and shoots Navarro in the thigh to keep him out of his hair while the partner holds the cryptozoologist who shops at Hot Topic at gunpoint. Noriega goes monster hunting and is killed in all of about 2 minutes. Actually, he doesn't look all that tore up but something definitely shredded his shirt to death. Starlina then risks breaking a nail to have a hair whipping catfight with the overly aggressive female cop and while the partner wasn't actually killed we might as well consider her as being such since this is also the last time we see her.

There are killer monsters loose in the building and the place is going to fill up with poison gas any minute now and they can't get out because the building is currently sealed up airtight. Thank God there's a convenient map detailing the location of the facilities manual override computer located on the wall right next to them. Starlina makes like RUN LOLA RUN as she briskly jogs to the computer override system located on the other side of the building. Meanwhile, Navarro, who has totally forgotten he's been shot in the leg or has healing powers like Wolverine, has to contend with an angry chupacabra. Fortunately for him he just happens to be armed with the one weapon no rampaging monster can thwart - a flare! I don't what it is about sparking flares but movie monsters of all type are left frightened and mesmerized, unable to move any closer to the person waving the thing at it and the chupacabra is apparently no different.

In the unbelievably ridiculous ending, our heroes are cornered inside the back of that truck from the beginning of the movie by the chupacabras. Suddenly, Mason makes his triumphant return from oblivion or wherever the hell he had been to subdue the male, the female just stands there docile the whole time as she has throughout the entire movie, and then shoos Navarro and Starlina out of the truck. He cackles about the priceless chupacabras now being all his and closes the door to the truck seemingly trapping himself in the back with them. Upon the door closing, Starlina remarks that she can't believe he got away and after everything they've been through this is how it ends thus echoing the sentiments of every living breathing soul watching this movie. The two of them walk away disappointed but discuss going out on a date so I guess the possibility of these two bumping uglies, getting married, and bringing babies into this world is supposed to qualify as the film's payoff.

Finally, Mason is shown driving in a van with the chupacabras in cages in the back heading to Texas, I believe thus threatening a sequel and from what I understand one actually is being planned. Yeah, I can't wait for that sequel. That one ranks right up there with DEADLY SPECIES II and DRAGON FIGHTER 2: THROUGH THE PORTAL OF TIME on my list of cheap monster movie sequels I couldn't care less about.

As the closing credit's rolled, it finally completely sunk in that I had just watched a movie where virtually nothing was explained, even less was resolved, and the bad guy escaped by doing nothing more than closing a door thus trapping himself inside an enclosed space followed by the brainless heroes bemoaning the fact that they were outsmarted by him.

My head hurts.

You Want Some Chupacabra Crotch? Here's You're Stinkin' Chupacabra Crotch!

MY NAME IS SCOTT FOY & I PAID TO SEE INNOCENT BLOOD