As the time of writing (and posting, since i improvised this trifecta of Popeye horror films’ reviews) this is the more recent in the batch of 3 horror films based around Popeye’s copyright falling into the public domain that were basically dumped on VOD, all released in a matter of months (or weeks) from one another, and while i’m fairly sure there by September (to be very generous) this specific declination of the fad will have died down due to diminishing returns (since it’s the third time, after Winnie The Pooh and Steamboat Willy’s Mickey Mouse) … i’m not putting this mini-marathon of modern “public domainxploitaition” in “extend mode” if another one or more of these eventually crop up, i’m not playing catch-up anymore.
So let’s see how Shiver Me Timbers, the debut film for director-writer Paul Stephen-Mann, fares out.
In the summer of 1986, a group of friends, led by Olive Oil and her brother Castor, are going on a trip in Northern California to witness the rare Haley’s comet meteor shower event, but they couldn’t expect that a comet piece would fall to the ground that night, a piece lodging itself into the corncob pipe of a reclusive fisherman living nearby, Popeye, now turned into a monstrous, violent killer with superhuman strenght, ready to sate its bloodthirst on Olive and his friends..
That’s already a bit more thought put to it than the other two Popeye slashers, and actually using more characters from Popeye, even though in names only, and unlike the other two, this one has some actual fun with the idea, being a straight up farce, starting with the fake anti-disclaimer saying “this are all real people, real non-fictional murders on this photoplay film movie thingie”, and going straight into splatter territory, which makes perfect sense, if you gonna jump on these stupid bandwagons, at least make it a splatter comedy, have some fun with it, you know?
Budget it’s lower than the other ones, it looks more amateurish, just slightly above crap like the Bunnyman films, the cast is also amateur in every regard, but at least it looks like a bunch of friends that got together to shot a stupid movie and enjoyed it, instead of feeling miserable.
The music selection is nice too, it’s a shame that they decided to be extra cheap and-or extra lazy for the gore effects, heck, i can kinda understand them using digital effects for the gore, but they even go so far as CG the actor playing the “transformed/mutated Popeye” (which just spouts various Popeye catchphrases-quotes in a cheap “demon voice”), and it’s not like they do this once, they do it constantly, and it’s always weird, uncanny and offputting, plus it’s stupid, don’t try and tell me you couldn’t afford a mask but could CG almost the entire actor!
Why? It just looks like i’m watching a live action cutscene where only the actor’s head/face (and the PIPE) is CGI, and it’s just off-putting, so it being more gory than the other two films barely matters (even where there are acceptable practical effects, and they don’t just squirt fake blood from offscreen over the characters’ silouhettes), plus the 1980s setting doesn’t really work, and even with it being just 73 minutes long, it’s so badly directed it feels longer than that,
Sure, doing an even more comical version of “CHAINSAW” bit from Evil Dead 2 should make for a fun climax, on paper, but in practice it’s a mess of shitty CGI….so still a highlight, in a way.
I feel bad having to bash this one, as the heart (and spirit) is in the right place, but everything else makes one wonder that if you don’t have the budget to shoot a movie, you don’t necessarily have to fucking do it anyway (while still having enough to almost 100% CGI the Popeye actor in every scene he is in, for whatever reason), everything is severly underbudgeted and amateurish that i think this might actually be worse than Popeye’s Revenge, at least that had practical effects and it was put together in a more professional fashion, and Popeye The Slayer Man had some decent cinematography.
Apparently there’s a sequel in the works slated for next year, we’ll see about that when the time comes and if i can be fucked.
As for this, while it ain’t the worst thing i’d ever seen and fares slightly above a Polonia joint… i still don’t recommend it.
Wise Cafe (International) 