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LEGION OF THE DEAD
Produced by David Latt, David Rimawi, Sherri Strain
Directed and Written by Paul Bales
Edited by Steven Graham and William Shaffer
Director of Photography - Megan SchoenbachlerMolly - Courtney Clonch
Aneh-Tet - Claudia Lynx
Kevyn - Emily Falkenstein
Sheriff Jones - Bruce Boxleitner
Prof. Swatek - Zach Galligan
Dr. Ben-David - Rhett Giles
Coroner - Andy LauerStop me if you've heard this one before. Two x-sport morons dirtbiking their way through southern California fall through a cave and discover a poorly dressed Egyptian tomb/filmset. After they're quickly slaughtered, archeology students descend on the area to translate the hieroglyphics. Doing so awakens a mummy in the tomb who needs to kill 6 souls so that she can revive her 6-man legion of the dead and get mid-Pharonic on their asses. It's up to the lovelorn nerdy girl and her spunky younger sister to save both the day as well as Nerdy's would-be suitor.
By the time the credits rolled on Paul Bales' LEGION OF THE DEAD I'd felt insulted. Not the closing credits, mind you, but the opening. The pointless pre-credit sequence the tone for the rest of the movie. The scenes contain a level of suspense that is akin to watching mold to grow on bread. The dialogue and acting are moronic to the point that they pass parody and camp altogether and land smack in the middle of Ed Wood territory. The effects look worse than any backyard-lensed Star Wars fan film found on iFilm. From The Asylum, a company that has released some great independent cinema over the years, such as PEP SQUAD, FISHING WITH GANDHI, and WAR OF THE WORLDS, unleashes this monstrosity that attacks audience members with all the ferocity of a bronze medal winner at the Special Olympics.
And then the credits rolled.
They looked nice. An animated sequence featuring an Egyptian theme with some nice background music. I figured if this is as good as it gets, then it's going to be a long 90 minutes.
I really wanted to like this movie. Bruce Boxleitner is one of the more underappreciated television actors working. He's been on long running hit shows during the last two decades, "The Scarecrow and Mrs. King," and "Babylon 5." The former is a family-friendly spy show from the early 80's that ran for years on CBS and was a staple in my household. B5 has such a modern cult following that, if he chose to, Boxleitner could finish out his days on the convention circuit and never worry about being strapped for cash. And let's not forget The Gambler series of television films, perhaps the most satisfying franchise of made-for-tv movies ever. Here he's reduced to the Richard Farnsworth role from MISERY, only he's given even less to do. His role of Sherrif Jones amounts to a paycheck, and little more.
Given even less to do than Boxleitner is Zack Galligan, the charming lad who made GREMLINS so endearing and WAXWORKS so much fun. He possesses that kind of charm that can be played either way, All-American boy next door or Eddie Haskell smarminess. And here, the 40 year old actor is perfectly cast as Professor Swatek, the sort of predator who sleeps with his young students. His winning smile and boyish looks make it easy to see why characters like Molly, our Nerdy Girl heroine and linguistics expert, would succumb to him. Prof. Swatek is the kind of character audiences would cheer for when they receive their comeuppance after a movie-full of mischief, like Paul Reiser in ALIENS, only they don't get the chance to due to budgetary constraints.
Yes, the "teacher sleeping with students" thing has been done before, and it's one of many cliches the LEGION OF THE DEAD throws at viewers. There's the "would-be lovers trying to work out differences" subplot that came across much more convincingly in THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 3. There's the "professor using his students to bring about evil" subplot as well. Oh, and let's not forget the "stupid people create this mess" scenario that opens the movie. Every aspect of this mummy-goes-wild cheesefest is taken directly from another movie, and could quite possibly make for the ultimate Friday night cult movie drinking contest where viewers shout out the movies from which the lifted scenes originated. Astute viewers drink once, everyone else takes two swigs. It might be enough to make the ending palatable.
Then there's continuity, a concept that in over 500 reviews, I've never once felt the need to comment on. The most notable error concerns Aneh-Tet, played by Claudia Lynx, the most breath-taking special effect the movie has going for it. Once she awakes from her centuries-old slumber, Aneh-Tet sets about killing some horny slackers all the while in the buff. When she happens upon Zack Galligan she's obviously wearing a wrap around her nether regions. In the next scene, she's back to basking all of her glory in the sweet moonlight. Then there's actor Rhett Giles' accent, is his Dr. Ben-Davie German or French? Part two of the drinking game involves swilling once for the spotters of other such errors, and two chugs for the not-to-observant.
But in the end there really needs to be more to a movie than a drinking game, and LEGION OF THE DEAD fails on all those requirements. This is like a Full Moon release without the fanboy glee, or even worse, a made for Sci-Fi channel original that is marketable only for the names attached and not because of the film's merits. In the end, outside of mentioning the film's attractive ladies, I'm unable to say anything positive about the movie at all.
The dvd contains a brief making-of featurette and a commentary track. My review screener was filled with glitches that required testing on three different players before it could be viewed.