Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls; this installment of WME is brought to you by the letter "S". Yes that's right; the letter "S".
As in stalker.
As many of you may know, I have a stalker. She is probably reading this right now just like many of you. And even though she knows who she is, and most of my friends have heard at least one story concerning her, I will not mention her name here. At least that's what I've been advised to do by my lawyer who, coincidentally seems to be dragging his feet on the restraining order I told him to draft.
Whatever the pending legal status may be, this one is dedicated to her. Although, now that I think about it, she'll probably take this as a compliment and assume I'm asking her to the winter formal or something as equally bat shit crazy.
Anyway, the movie starts out as any movie does these days; with a DVD menu. It's hard enough to believe that someone got funding for this travesty, but they went the extra mile on this one. They went back and recorded a cast commentary. I have not, as of yet, had the stones to torture myself to that degree.
So after pushing play, the opening credits start rolling and the images that are played behind them are something of a Smashing-Pumpkins-music-video meets Dionysian-blood-orgy love child. I was genuinely disturbed, and I'm pretty sure that was not the intended effect.
Enter our protagonist, Ray (insert cheering here). A very unassuming guy who looks like an insurance adjuster. He pulls up to work and gets his "briefcase" out of the car when he hears someone struggling to move some luggage (BTW, it's in quotations because it's actually a backpack. C'mon Ray. Buy an attache or something. You're a businessman for fuck sake.). So he goes over to see what the hullabaloo is about and he finds an attractive but could-have-herpes looking woman.
Enter our antagonist, Tara (insert boos and hisses here). He helps her with the extremely heavy luggage and the whole time I'm waiting for a "Whah da you have in there, dead bodies?" joke, but alas, I am thwarted. She says thanks, he says good bye and walks back to work that is somehow magically on the other side of her fence.
But wait! Before he can slip in the door, his boss comes out to the parking lot and chastises him for being late. He tries to explain but she'll have none of it. What a bitch, right? But what they didn't know was that Tara was watching the whole admonishment through a hole in her fence. Why? Who cares; it'd be creepy no matter what the answer.
Forward to the end of the work day and Ray is walking to his car. As he is closing his trunk, Tara pops out from behind the fence where she has presumably been hiding all day. She asks him if he wouldn't mind helping her again. He obliges and he follows her into her house and puts a TV on its stand. She asks if he wants a beer, and he says he can't but she talks him into it. She goes and gets a couple and they have a chat about his job (Oh, and he is an insurance adjuster apparently).
The beer was Fat Tire, by the way. One more reason not to trust people who drink that weird ass indie beer.
Next scene, we see Ray running up to a woman and apologizing that he's late. This is his girlfriend, Maddie (insert appropriate supporting actress noise here). She gets mad at him not because he's late, but because he smells like beer. Aaaahhhh beer. One. A singular beverage.
Get off you high horse woman. You look like you personally keep Colombian drug lords in business.
Then she starts bitching about how her and her son (like she didn't have enough baggage) need someone reliable in their lives. She storms off and he decides to go tie one on with his old army buddy who ends up playing russian roulette with some random guy at a bar. Not my first choice, but hey; different strokes right?
Ray ends up drunk on Harry Hines Boulevard (yes, this was filmed in Dallas) drowning his sorrows in a bottle of triple sec. Again, not my first choice.
But guess who happens to show up to drive his drunk ass home? You guessed it, TARA!!!
When our main guy comes to, he is naked next to Tara. He looks really distraught, but I'm pretty sure it has more to do with his possible exposure to an STD than it has to do with his infidelity. He gets his clothes and slips out the door like a douchebag.
When he gets home, he finds out that during his bender, his girlfriend got in a car wreck. BAM! That's gotta make you feel bad. Your woman was getting stitches while you were gettin some strange. That's worth AT LEAST a couple dozen "Our Father's".
But life goes on. He apologizes, swears he won't do it again and goes to work. He's late again and his boss tells him that she is gonna take it out of his vacation time. Super bitch move. I hope that your position as Queen of Bitchville doesn't come back to bite you in the ass later.
So with another nondescript day done, he heads back to his car to drive home. But in true stalker fashion, Tara is already waiting at his car. She wants him to come over, he says no. She asks why. He tells her that the sexytime was a mistake. Then she asks if he's breaking up with her. And were I person who has never had a stalker, I probably would have laughed. I just shuddered instead. Anyway, she storms off.
She gets back to her house to find a man waiting on her front porch. He tells her that she's not supposed to have a relationship for a full calendar year. Then they fuck on her kitchen table. Although, she doesn't actually appear to be enjoying it. At one point he says, "Don't get any shit on my dick. I don't have time to shower before I go back to work". A real charmer, right? But keep this guy in mind for later though, as his role is completely fucking stupid and pointless.
He leaves, she takes a bath and shaves her armpits with a Bowie knife. I really don't think that was the intended use of said blade, and I'm pretty sure James Bowie is rolling in his grave somewhere. Oh yeah, and then she makes a cardboard standee of Ray; complete with a photo of his face where the face would normally be.
Later in the movie, she ambushes him at a job site while he's talking to his partner Donny who is in the middle of making a tasteless Bang, Kill or Marry joke about Mother Teresa. Ray tells her to get lost and she goes on a tirade asking Donny if Ray has told him about their one night stand. Donny deflects the question but she presses further and asks if he knew that Ray was into golden showers. It only gets more disturbing from there. Finally Tara leaves and our main guy is back at his house drying his hair after what we can assume is a normal, non golden shower. He then turns around and proposes to his girlfriend who is ironically right behind him sitting on the toilet and taking a piss. And who said romance was dead..?
So, she says yes and he does what anyone would do after a marriage proposal; he checks his voicemail. He has nine new messages, all from Tara.
I was thinking, "That lucky mother fucker. I would give my left arm for an under ten stalker message count". And of course all the messages conflict with one another: I love you, I hate you, I need you inside me, I'm gonna cut your dick off, But I've got tickets for Cirque du Soleil, I want you to WANT to do the dishes. That kind of thing.
A couple of days pass and we see Ray and Maddie drive up to a drug store. Maddie informs us that she's just gonna be a minute and leaves the car to enter the store. Ray is waiting in the car when Tara jumps in the passenger side. She tells him that he needs to call her cause she's so in love with him. He says no, so she flips on the whore switch and puts his hand in her crotch. He recoils with disgust, but wait! What's this? Blood? Yep, you guessed it; her va-jay-jay is currently entertaining Aunt Flo.
I am in no way an expert on the female condition or the equipment that it encompasses, but I'm pretty damn sure you would be wearing panties during this event. Otherwise it seems like you'd be going through a hell of a lot of clothing. And god forbid if you have white furniture!
Tara ends up leaving before wifey gets back and the next thing we see is Ray picking up his dry cleaning. Tara follows him to his car and reveals a shocking present for him in trunk.
Any guesses as to what it is?
(Pause for logical deduction)
IT'S A PUPPY!!!
Nah, it's his dead boss. But she was a bitch anyway, so I didn't feel bad. He threatens to call the cops, but she says that if he does that, all the evidence would point to him killing and raping her.
Wait, raping? Yes that's right. Remember the one night stand that Ray and Tara had? She saved the condom and inserted his business into the dead dragon lady.
Hat's off to you stalker. That takes some serious foresight. I don't know if I should be impressed or inspired. Aside from the whole crazy thing, you really got this shit on lock down.
Ray opts to avoid possible jail time and agrees to help bury the body. They get to a suitable remote locale and Tara says that they have to make sure the body is unrecognizable. She starts hacking it up with a shovel and our fearless Iraq vet starts to puke.
I immediately say, "Weren't you in Iraq?".
So did Tara. But then again, I do know stalkers...
There is a shining light to this scene however. She keeps hacking away and then makes a surly kind of face. She looks up and says, "Fuck, she had sushi for lunch".
Ray vomits.
I laughed.
They go back to the car and she opens the trunk to put the shovel away, and says, "Ah bummer. It looks like she shit all over your trunk.".
Ray vomits again.
Again, I laughed.
That being done, our characters go back to their lives for a few days; cause that makes PERFECT sense.
The rest is quick until the climax.
Tara ends up killing Donny and gun-happy army buddy. Well, not killing; that's a misnomer. She gives them a lobotomy and they die due to the GIANT HOLE DRILLED IN THEIR HEADS!
Anyway, she lures Ray to her house, hits him in the head, and ties him up in the basement and calls Maddie over under false pretenses. She also ends up hitting Maddie on the head and tying her up next to Ray.
Favorite part: Tara is about to kill Maddie when there is a knock at the front door. Tara goes to answer it and it's the creepy dude from the earlier portion of the movie. Remember, the "no shit on my dick guy" I told you to remember? Well, he comes in the house and walks around like he owns the place. He talks to Tara for a minute and is interrupted by something that sounds like it's coming from the basement. Tara ends up distracting him and he continues his convo with Tara. He tells her that she needs to be at the hospital tomorrow for her tests. She says she'll be there. He propositions her for sex, but she says she's in a hurry. In consolation, she says, "But I always have time to give my Daddy a blow job.".
WTF mate! Creepy anal lover is her father? That was definitely not a necessary plot point, nor was it relevant. In fact, I was so weirded out by the revelation that I went and took a shower. Eeeeehhhh...
Meanwhile in the basement, we find out that Maddie is preggers with Ray's child. Right about this time, Tara comes back down. Her and Maddie end up in a cat fight that somehow knocks out Ray. Maddie ends up stabbed in the gut and bleeds to death. Ray comes to and starts crying. Tara starts in on some sort of "it's for the best" speeches when Maddie's phone rings. It's her child's school; he needs to be picked up. Tara decides to go get him, presumably to kill him.
She leaves the basement to change out of her blood soaked blouse, allthewhile Ray hulks the fuck out and breaks his restraints so he can save little Billy.
This left me wondering; You can't get this adrenaline rush for your fiance, but a child that's not yours brings out the Lou Ferrigno in you? Right.
So by the time he busts out, Tara's gone. So Ray does the only logical thing to catch up with her; He carjacks an 80 year old man.
Eventually, he finds the two, but not before she has killed the small child and smeared his blood on her face.
Wow(!) is all I have for that one.
She ends up hitting Ray on on the head with a two by four and bringing him back to her house.
She gives him a lobotomy and then gives him a strip tease. Then she turns him into a marionette by tying ropes to his wrists.
Then she gets mad that he never does anything, and that he's so lifeless. Her words, not mine.
So she chops him up and puts him in some luggage that she then drags to her car; effectively completing some sort of retarded cycle that we should have seen coming.
It all ends with the credits rolling over an opossum carcass rotting and being devoured by insects.
So what can we take away from this film? What was the underlying meaning?
1. "She's Crushed" is what can happen if you help strangers.
2. "She's Crushed" any hope I had of getting rid of my stalker.
And most importantly,
3. "She's Crushed" is the worst movie ever.
