Review of C-Movie " Cerberus"

The great thing about being out of Singapore and working in the IndoChina region is that you get to sample the whole range of illegal DVDs circulating around in Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Laos. To call these DVDs illegal might be misleading since some of these countries haven't got around to instituting their own intellectual property laws yet. In Laos for example, it is against the law to sell illegal VCDs but the law is kinda murky on the sale of illegal DVDs. What's the difference? I honestly have no idea. In any cases, law enforcement on intellectual property rights violation is weak and almost non-existent. I mean, if Singapore has a problem dealing with our own "pirates", we shouldn't expect much from our friends from IndoChina.

Thus I have the honor (dubious)of getting to watch the entire plethora of movies from Hollywood as well as the rest of the world such as Russia, Germany and hell, even Azerbaijan. Singaporean movie-goers are usually familiar only with the A-movies from Hollywood i.e. those that make it from the production studio to the big screen such as Titanic and Spiderman. Let me try to explain the categories of A-Z movies from Hollywood:

A-Movies : Think movies you watch on the big screen like Spiderman or Lord of the Rings. Nuff said.

B-Movies : The line is slightly blur. B-Movies have average script, lesser cash to throw around and even lesser know actors. I am not saying that such movies are bad (in fact, some are awesome) but there a lot of slapstick horror duds along the way. 50% made it to the movies, the other straight to cable TV and the video store. Many of them are sci-fi, slasher horror movies with no lofty ambitions other than to serve up bloody carnage and awesome boobies (which is all good in my book). Some of the best slasher movies started off as B-Movies such as Friday the 13th. My favourite movie is the Army of Darkness starring Bruce Campbell and is frequently shown on AXN. If you see a guy sawing off his own arm and attaching a chainsaw to it while attacking demons with slapstick comedy thrown in for good measure, it is probably a kick-ass B-grade movie.

C-Movies : OMG. Probably no C-Movies ever made it to the big screen. All are destined for cable hell. These are the movies which cable network like HBO shows at 2 am where nobody in their right mind will get up to watch. These are "time fillers" and TCS used to show quite a lot of these movies in the early 90's. These movies have little money, no ambitions and starring actors and actresses from Eastern European countries which are paid by pizzas and hot soups instead of money. You get the picture.

To this end, I will preview an excellent C-Movie. This movie is so good it should be promoted to B level instantly. Introducing a movie I watched last night:

There is no need for me to go too much into the details of this C-Movie horror flick called Cerberus. But Cerberus is the kind of movie which all low-budget movies should follow. Below is CO's easy checklist on what a good B or C movie should encompass:

Yep, Cerberus has almost all the above kick-ass characteristics of a good movie. For those who really want to know the plot, it is about a group of mercenaries stealing a magic sword from a cave in Romania which was guarded by a three-headed dog with a snake for a tail (I am not making this shit up). The hell dog got loose and needless to say, rampaged through some small Romanian town and opened up a can of whoop-ass on horny Romanian girls, fat Romanian bartenders and ruthless but stupid mercenaries. The producer even thrown in a Japanese mafia gangster to ensure there are no racial discrimination when it came to getting your ass kicked.

It has all the standard ingredients necessary to make you laugh and cry at the same time. E.g. ever notice in all horror monster movies, there is always a token black guy who sacrifices himself to save his friends from the monster? In Cerberus, we have a black guy who told his friends this:

Token Black Guy : Quick, the hell dog is chasing us! Run! I will try to buy time by blowing up the cave even though it will not slow the dog down at all.

White hunky guy : But why? We can easily out run the giant dog. If you spent time blowing up the cave, chances are that you would be late in crawling up the escape vent and you would be eaten.

Token Black Guy : Despite certain death by being eaten by the dog, I must still fufill my destiny as a token black actor who is lowly paid and highly forgettable. It is my only purpose in the movie.

Yep, Token Black Guy stayed behind to blow up the cave and of course got eaten by the dog even though there is absolutely no need for him to do so. Dumbass.

And then the girls. OMG, the Romanian girls. Their only purpose in the movie is to take off their clothes, have sex and then get killed by the hell dog. They don't even have a single word of dialogue. Their modus operandi in the movie is :

Step 1 : Take off clothes.

Step 2 : Being groped by male actors

Step 3 : Notice giant dog creeping behind the male actor

Step 4 : Scream weakly

Step 5 : Dies.

(Rinse and Repeat 932nd time)

Which is all good actually. But the best thing about the movie is this bad-ass mercenary called Cutter. Cutter got this magic sword and became invincible. He then ran around town, killing all the old Romanian people, his Japanese boss and banged the absolutely stunning barmaid a few times. I mean, if this is not a good movie, I don't know what is.