On this entry of the Bargain Binge, I’m going to spotlight one of my favorite little used media chains: Edward McKay used books of North Carolina!
Not to be confused with the similarly-named regional chains “McKay Used Books” or “Mr. K’s Used Books”, “Edward McKay Used Books” has locations throughout North Carolina, specifically in Fayetteville, Greensboro, Winston-Salem, and Raleigh. I have been to three of them (the only exception being the Fayetteville store), and I absolutely adore the wide selection of DVDs they typically have had to offer.
I have most recently visited the Raleigh location, which seems significantly smaller than the others to me. It also is located right next to one of my favorite bargain hunting locations: “Trade It!”, and it is probably hurt by the direct comparison. That said, the chain has a unique charm to it, and I always aim to pick something up when I go through. I mean, just look at these t-shirts:
If you ever find yourself traveling through North Carolina, definitely seek out a local Edward McKay. I have found some great obscure and rare stuff in their cult section before, and almost picked up the Hasselhoff “Nick Fury” movie on my most recent visit. They are mighty cool spots with decent prices on DVDs, books, and albums, so you are bound to find something you’ll like there. They also usually have an extensive DVD bargain section of movies between 3-5 dollars, which certainly isn’t bad.
This past weekend, I had the pleasure of doing some travel around the country for work. Whenever I get the opportunity, I love to dig around in new locales and find their local used DVD shops, and see what specific cities have to offer. In fact, I have done enough of this recently that the activity inspired this specific section of the blog. I started the “Bargain Bin(ge)” feature in order to spotlight local physical DVD shops and the hauls I pick up from them, particularly in the aftermath of the fall of BlockBuster Video.
One of the areas that I hit on this most recent trip was Washington, D.C.: the U.S. Capital, and one of the major metropolitan areas in the states.
Given the size and population of the DC Metro area, I expected to find a wealth of used DVD and physical media stores. Unfortunately, this was not at all the case. While my initial Google-ing yielded a number of results, it didn’t take long for me to find that almost all of them had closed. In particular, I found out that the DC area was once home to an expansive local video rental chain called “Potomac Video”, which only shut its doors in May of this year.
That really is a shame, because it looked like quite a fantastic place from all of the pictures that I have seen.
I am curious as to what became of the extensive stock of these Potomac Video stores, as it doesn’t seem that any heirs have popped up in the area. I have noticed that a number of thrift stores bought out the stocks of local BlockBusters as they fell, and I can’t help but wonder if that may have been the same case here. In any case, I didn’t find any promising DVD shops in the DC Metro area, which I was really disappointed by.
On a whim, I decided to check out a record shop in Arlington, VA on my way out of town. I have noticed that record shops will sometimes carry a decent stock of DVDs, but it is never really a sure thing. Luckily, in this case, CD Cellar had a small, eclectic collection of cult movies and rare finds.
One of the coolest finds here was a copy of Larry Cohen’s early mob feature “Black Caesar”, starring Fred Williamson. If you haven’t seen this movie, I highly recommend it. I think it far surpasses “Scarface” (1983) on just about every level while dealing with similar themes, and it predates that film by a whole decade. It might be my favorite movie to chronicle the rise and fall of a gangster, and that is saying something for this low-budget feature. It is worth noting that this was the first time, outside of Atlanta’s rental location “Videodrome”, that I have found a physical copy of this movie.
Apart from “Black Caesar”, there were some great cult deep cuts like “Head of the Family”, “The Ice Cream Man”, and “The Mangler” that don’t make your typical DVD store catalog. That said, the prices were far from stellar, but I wasn’t particularly surprised by that. I still walked out with a few DVDs, even though none of them were what I consider “bargains” (most DVDs were 6 dollars and up, a handful got down to 4). Regardless, I was happy to not leave the DC area completely empty-handed.
I am hoping that perhaps MovieStop or another chain will make its way to the area before long to pick up the slack in the wake of Potomac Video, or maybe someone else will get something started locally. I’m sure that DC could use a reasonably priced movie shop, or even a eclectic video rental shop along the lines of Atlanta’s Videodrome or Seattle’s Scarecrow Video. As for right now though, the area is regrettably a desert for people looking for bargain DVD shops.
Ah, The Exchange. This is yet another one of my local Huntsville, AL haunts for digging up used DVDs, and boy is it a doozy.
The Exchange isn’t nearly as pretty, as friendly, or as cheap as MovieStop, but it does have a peculiar charm to it. I have found some truly off the wall movies here, including most of Hulk Hogan’s filmography (including that one time he played Zeus). It also has an unparalleled ambiance, wedged between a dollar store and a sex shop in a run down Wal-Mart parking lot. This is the place you picture when you think of bargain DVD spots, and it lives up to its appearance.
As opposed to MovieStop, The Exchange does not deal exclusively in movies. However, they only carry used DVDs, so almost their entire stock is bargain bin in price and quality (in this context, that’s a good thing).
The Exchange doesn’t quite have the dirt prices of MovieStop either (at least in the bargain bins), but it is a rarity to find anything priced over 10 dollars in the entire selection of DVDs available.
In general, I choose MovieStop over The Exchange when I go hunting for movies. However, The Exchange is no pushover in regards to pricing and the obscurity of their collection, and I do find myself dropping by there pretty often because of it.
If you happen to be in Huntsville and are looking for something horrible to watch, this is a place to look. They also have some really dreadful posters on the wall from notoriously flopped movies such as “It’s Pat!” and “Red Tails” that are for sale, in case you are into that kind of thing. I can’t image who would be though.
MovieStop has got to be my favorite location for digging up DVDs. It doesn’t have the local charm of a lot of places, but they make up with it with their massive stock. I’m never quite sure what I’ve going to find in a MovieStop, but I always know that I am going to dig up something excellent / obscure (and that I’m not going to injure my wallet in the process).
As you might gather, MovieStop is essentially a GameStop for movies. It was, in fact, previously run under the same company, but has since branched out into independent operations. And personally, I’d say the service you find at MovieStops is far and away better than what you would find at your average GameStop.
Based out of Atlanta, the company has already done a lot of expanding in the Southeast. I have actually been to just about every MovieStop in the region through my travels, and they have been pretty consistently impressive. Currently, they are still only operating out of 10 states, but I have seen (and heard) every indication that further expansion is just around the corner.
Ever since I have been going to my local MovieStop in Huntsville, AL, they have been running a bargain bin sale: movies on the rack are 2.99, and ‘buy one get one free’. Rarely can one find a better deal than that. I have picked up a ton of features for this blog through that sale alone, and have quite the impressive backlog because of it. (Also, MovieStops consistently have used BibleMan DVDs in stock. Except for the Huntsville, AL one, because I bought them all)
Last but not least, MovieStop stores are almost always pretty. Most DVD spots are usually run down and dingy, sometimes even located next to sex shops…
…or tagged as a juggalo hangouts.
So, MovieStops kind of nicely break up the typical pattern. They even go above and beyond on some of the design and frills in the stores:
So, if you are ever traveling through (or live in) an area with a MovieStop, I highly recommend checking them out. They are not all equal in quality (the Tuscaloosa, AL one is particularly disappointing), but in general they are great places to find movies: obscure foreign films, classic B-movies, indies from the 90s, current Blu-ray releases, and just about anything else you might be looking for.
I love covering the many movies I dig up at bargain bins around the country, but I don’t often spotlight the bargain locations themselves. So, here are a few photos from one of my favorite spots: McKay’s.
McKay’s is a small chain of cavernous used media stores, located throughout Tennessee. As you can see from the following photos from their Nashville location, their bargain bins are literally giant, re-purposed laundry bins.
Their prices are reasonable even on non-bargain items, and they have just about everything under the sun: movies, music, games, books, audiobooks, comics, etc. I will say that it definitely leans for quantity over quality in most departments, but it is great for finding things you may not have seen or heard of before.
Last but certainly not least, the Nashville McKay’s has the most excellent, adorable coffee chop I have ever seen parked out front. I mean, just look at it.
If you happen to find yourself in Knoxville, Nashville, or Chattanooga, I highly suggest taking some time to see what you can dig up in a McKay’s. You are sure to find something.
Howdy loyal readers! Unfortunately, I’m going to have to take some time off from the blog over the next couple of weeks due to a bunch of work conferences and a cross-country move. I’m going to try to keep putting out a couple of IMDb Bottom 100 entries weekly through the end of July before I get cooking daily again.
In the meantime, here is another quick sampling of features I’ve dug out of bargain bins in recent months. We have a DeCoteau version of “The Wolf of Wall Street” from 2002, a notorious Ted V. Mikels flick about cat food, Roddy Piper in an urban dystopia, old Dolph Lundgren doing something involving casinos, and more! Check them out!
Welcome to yet another installment of (God)Awful Movies! This time around, I’m checking out the baffling Christian music video compilation “S.O.S.”, which was brought to my attention through the most recent episode of RedLetterMedia’s “Best of the Worst”. You can check out the whole video below (and you should, it is a great episode).
Something that you may note from the episode is that the RLM gang’s copy of “S.O.S.” is completely in Japanese, so they do their best to piece together the themes from the visuals alone. They also weren’t able to do much research on the video, given the language barrier. Lucky for me, I found an english copy of “S.O.S.” on YouTube, and was able to learn about the video’s background…sort of.
“S.O.S.” was produced by “The Family International”, which is a sort of peculiar hippie cult version of Evangelical Christianity. I highly recommend reading the wikipedia page on the group, as their theology is nothing short of baffling. Here is an excerpt for you:
“[Loving Jesus] is a term that TFI members use to describe their intimate, sexual relationship with Jesus. TFI describes the “Loving Jesus” teachings as a radical form of bridal theology.[18] It is their understanding of the Bible that the followers of Christ are his bride, called to love and serve him with the fervor of a wife. They took bridal theology further than mainstream Christians by encouraging members to imagine that Jesus is having sex with them during sexual intercourse and masturbation. Male members were encouraged to visualize themselves as women, in order to avoid a homosexual relationship with Jesus.”
That’s sure something, isn’t it? The only thing I knew about TFI prior to reading that entry was that River and Joaquin Phoenix were both raised as part of the organization for a time, and that it was a bit out of left field. It looks like there is a deep, dark hole to dig into in regards to some shady practices by the organization, but I’m not going to go any deeper into it here. I’d much rather ridicule some ridiculous music videos.
The first segment doesn’t dig explicitly into Christianity, but does give us a ton of goofy robots and early CGI. Watching it in English, it is clearly a luddite/anti-technology song, which comes back in a big way later on. To my dismay, the title song “S.O.S.” in this segment is ridiculously catchy, so I suppose the people behind this have to get kudos for that. It is definitely interesting that without the context of the later videos, it is easy to think that the “angels” in this section are either aliens, greek god-creatures, or sprites of some sort. Given how heavy-handed the segments get later on, this part definitely feels like a “wedge” or “hook” to get general audiences into the fold.
Surely this technology will save us from the technologyWorshiping a trash compacter makes about as much sense as cult that produced this mess.The cupid/angel/overlords of love. I was a little disappointed that they didn’t fight the robots.
The second segment is probably the most forgettable of all of them. The first couple of minutes show a band repeating the same two lines of a song about a billion times while a “party” commences in front of them. This bit segues immediately into a romantic song (via some of the worst transitions you will ever see) in which two partygoers leer at each other across a room and fantasize about each other. It is astoundingly uncomfortable to watch.
It holds on this shot for way too long. Try not to make eye contact.
The third segment is nothing short of a beautiful treasure of nonsense. You could basically boil it down to being a “God’s Not Dead” musical comedy. There are a lot of monkey suits (and monkeys in suits?) involved, and you will be left wondering just how our education system managed to fail so many so completely. They even cap it off with a reference to Charles Darwin’s “deathbed conversion”. Oh joy!
So, we have a guy in a suit being a monkey, and a guy in a suit AND a monkey suit just being a guy. Got it.Cronenberg’s Theory of Evolution by Nightmare Selection
The fourth segment is pretty straight-forward anti-abortion propaganda. All subtleties have long been jettisoned by the time this portion gears up, so this song is written from the perspective of the fetus singing to the would-be mother, featuring such lyrics as “Mother keep me, I’m your baby! / Oh Mother let me live, don’t take away my life”. I was completely unprepared for the lyrics to this one, as I initially just saw clips of the Japanese version on RedLetterMedia. With the translations, this segment is by far the most abysmal. Not only is there nothing to laugh at in it, but the damn thing is just disgustingly predatory.
I’m not a doctor or anything, but I’m pretty sure that is just an x-acto knife.
The fifth segment enlightens the audience to the inherent evils of grocery stores, and encourages everyone to abandon technology entirely in favor of living in the woods to count down to the rapture. Yeah, that’s where this is all going. This may be the best segment, just due to the creepy makeup and baffling premise. Once again, the song is undeservedly catchy for a tune about the evil of grocery store scanners.
Segment six follows up with the same grocery-phobic commune that concludes segment five, and we get to go full-on rapture. There are some lovely interpretive drawings of the rapture featured for some reason, a handy rapture calendar is shown, a lot of vague pointing happens, and Jesus himself makes a fly-by cameo! It all finishes up with the green-screened rapture of the central characters, where they narrowly escape the satanic grocery stormtroopers. It is all quite good fun if you can distance yourself from the fact that people took/take this seriously.
“awww yisss, rapture!”Do rapture calendars involve candy or something, like those advent calendars?Vaguely pointing upward. I assume at the flying, crucified Jesus.A smiling, crucified Jesus flies overhead. Kind of like a kite I guess.Google image search hasn’t failed me yet.
For the record, after a green-screened rapture, anything else is going to be an anticlimax. There’s just nowhere to go from there. Nevertheless, there is a segment seven. Outside of some excellent Rick Astley dancing, there isn’t a whole lot to see in this one. The way this segment is shot is really jarring and unpleasant to watch (odd effects mostly), and it doesn’t have any kind of plot within itself. We get some visual recaps from each section over a song about rebirth and the aforementioned Astley-dancing, and then the YouTube video bluescreens for about five minutes. That was my favorite part.
I’ve never been so happy to see this
So, is “S.O.S.” worth watching? Abso-fucking-lutely, yes. This is a mind-boggling experience to sit through. It had me laughing at cheesy effects and dated fashions, creeped-out by the cultishness of it all, furious at the bullshit propagated by it, and confused beyond any measure. This is a golden find. I don’t know how RedLetterMedia came by this thing, but somebody knew perfectly well what they were passing on. I can only hope for something this gloriously awful when I rummage through bargain bins. Knowing more about the organization behind this video makes it all the creepier and more perplexing to watch, so I’m a little sad that the RLM people didn’t try to dig up more info ahead of time. On the plus side, they get completely blind-sided by the content, which is damn entertaining.
If you are interested in watching the full English version of “S.O.S.”, you can find it below:
Welcome to the latest installment of Bargain Bin(ge)! I spend a lot of time in the bargain bins of used DVD shops all over the country looking for potentially forgotten or overlooked cinematic atrocities, and I document all of the highlights here.
Today I’m featuring a spectacular failure to adapt a popular (and personally beloved) anime to film, a local 80s movie that has rightfully been forgotten to time (but “launched” a lauded film career), a low-budget deep-sea creature-feature, and a Lucio Fulci “Django” knock-off. Let’s get started!
I am a huge fan of the “Mobile Suit Gundam” anime franchise, and have been for well over a decade. That said, I have been aware of this live action stinker from 2000 for quite some time. Like most Gundam fans, I try to pretend it doesn’t exist. Unfortunately, it does, and I found it in a bargain bin just a couple of weeks ago while I was on a business trip. I’ve never watched it before, but just from the trailer I can tell that this is going to be a painful experience. I think there should just be a standing policy that anime shouldn’t be translated into live action unless someone really knows what they are doing. Director Graeme Campbell still does a fair number of made-for-TV movies and work on various series, but it doesn’t seem that he’s been able to cut it in the big time. Likewise, the writers have credits on Sci-fi shows like “Mutant X” and “Tripping the Rift”, but not much else to speak of. A number of the actors have gone into voice acting or B-level TV and movie work, which are the most successful stories to come out of “G-Savior”.
For those unaware, the “Mobile Suit Gundam” franchise has a following in Japan not unlike “Star Wars” does here. It is absolutely huge, and has been consistently produced in one form or another since the original series debut in 1979. A number of the series were cut in order to be released theatrically in segments, and are actually pretty impressive. So, to have a live action “Gundam” whiffed on so badly was a huge disappointment.
Realistically, you just couldn’t do a convincing mech live-action movie until pretty recently. Stuart Gordon’s “Robot Jox” in 1989 wasn’t quite impressive enough with audiences, and that was the best mech movie on the table for decades. With the recent successes of “Pacific Rim” and (ugh) “Transformers”, I’m curious if we’ll see someone pick up the baton and try another go at “Gundam” on the big screen in the not-too-distant future.
This one is a bit of a local stinker. Filmed on location in my hometown of Huntsville, Alabama at the US Space and Rocket Center, the whole film oozes the essence of the 1980s, including featuring an unnecessary robot companion a la “Rocky IV”. Both of the screenwriters have almost no other credits before or after this, outside of a couple of unimpressive Christian movies. Director Harry Winer has done a fair amount of TV work in the decades since this film, but never managed to break out in films (I expect for good reason). Proving that some were capable of getting away from this beast with a successful career, this was cinematic debut of Academy Award nominated actor Joaquin Phoenix. How about that? The cast also includes such sort-of notable names as Kelly Preston, Lea Thompson, Tate Donovan, Terry O’Quinn, and Tom Skerritt, who have all had at least respectable acting careers. I’m mostly just looking forward to that good ol’ child acting from Joaquin Phoenix. Here’s a taste:
To give you a sense as to how successful this movie was, director Dan Milner only directed one more movie after this feature (of his three total), and then concluded his career as an editor for “Popeye the Sailor Man” and “Bozo: The World’s Most Famous Clown”. So, it didn’t exactly take off. However, this lowest-of-the-low B-movie supposedly has a lot of entertainment value to it, along the lines of a Roger Corman flick. I’m always on board for a cheap monster movie, so I’m hoping this has promise.
Ah, Franco Nero. What a beautiful, beautiful man. I’ve talked about him way, way back when I covered “Django (1966)”, but haven’t really come across him since then. However, he is in “Omega Code 2”, so the isn’t the last I’ll see of the gorgeous original Django. As for “Massacre Time”, this flick came out stateside in 1968, despite being made in 1966. Directed by infamous filmmaker Lucio Fulci, who would a decade later film a zombie fighting a shark in his notorious cult classic “Zombie”, and written by prolific Italian filmmaker Fernando Di Leo, this movie looks as spaghetti as spaghetti movies get. As you would expect given the success of “Django”, this movie was sold and distributed as a clone/knockoff to play off of Nero’s leading role in the film. The movie even went by such names as “Django: The Runner”, “Django: Der Hauch des Todes”, and “Djangos seksløber er lov” in various foreign markets. I’m quite looking forward to this one, and have my fingers crossed that it will be a good (massacre) time.
In my latest foray into my local movie store’s bargain bin, I managed to turn up an interesting DVD, titled “The Animated Passion”:
Of course, I had to pick it up. It is a Bargain Bin(ge) / (God)Awful Movies crossover!
It turns out that the DVD is actually two different short animated movies. They appear to be sort-of related, despite one having a 1988 release and the other 2004. They also look pretty much identical in style, with only minor differences. They are similar enough that I had trouble distinguishing them as different movies, especially given that “He Is Risen” occurs chronologically immediately after “Worthy is the Lamb”. With a little cutting, they could be the same movie easily. Seriously, tell me if these two clips look like they are from different movies:
Both movies are directed by Richard Rich, who is mostly known as one of three directors on “The Fox and The Hound”. Most of his career since that time has been dedicated to religious animated movies like these. Judging from the quality of these movies, I’m not so sure that was by choice. The biggest surprise I found, primarily because there is no promotion of it on the box whatsoever, is that “He is Risen” was written by acclaimed Sci-Fi / Fantasy author Orson Scott Card (of “Ender’s Game” fame). According the IMDb, he did a fair amount of that back in the 80’s. I suppose that isn’t so surprising given his much-maligned opinions on homosexuality, but I was still taken aback to see his name on screen.
Yeah, fuck this guy
As soon as the first film (“Worthy is the Lamb”) started, there was a lengthy disclaimer on screen about the fact that people from multiple faiths would be depicted, and that no offense was intended to anyone. That sent up a red flag off the bat for me, as it would anyone. As it turns out, it was quite justified. The depictions of Jewish people in this movie are, to say the least, not good. The voice actors go way over-the-top, and the character designs / animations are not flattering. All of that said, the fellow voicing Caiaphas was one of the few highlights in the whole film. He was capital-A “ACTING”. The only people who ever came close to him in hammy-ness were the guys doing Pilate and Judas, fulfilling the age-old tradition of over-the-top bad dudes. In contrast, the guy voicing Jesus sounded like he was about 85 years old. He was soft-spoken, elderly, and was about the least charismatic voice in the cast. This seems to be a running problem with depicting Jesus in just about anything: he always comes off as incredibly boring. I guess that’s the Christian idea of perfection?
Helix has a pretty winning personality compared to your typical on-screen Jesus
The animation in both of these movies is…sub-par. In particular, most of the male characters have identical beards/mustaches, which makes telling people apart nearly impossible. There were also a lot of moments where the motions seemed jarring, like they were cutting corners by skipping frames. There were instances where the animators clearly didn’t know what they were doing, such as when anyone’s feet were in motion on screen, or if any characters were depicted crying. There is also a horrifying moment where sheep are shown in a state of panic during an earthquake. The animators’ attempt to depict sheep mouths looks like nightmare fuel.
While watching these, I specifically remarked that this is the worst animated feature I had seen since the Titanic animated movies. After doing research, it turns out that the voice actor for Caiaphas was in BOTH of those Titanic animated flicks. Even better, he was the rapping dog. Really.
The next huge problem with these movies requires some context. Check out this passage from the back of the box:
Your family will enjoy these two movies, appropriate even for young children…These high-quality, scripturally accurate stories will completely captivate children
Let me break down the issue into two key phrases from that passage: “scripturally accurate” and “captivate children”. These movies pull scripture and dialogue straight out of the King James Bible. There are no colloquialisms here, and no attempts to make the features kid-friendly outside of not animating blood. These movies are pretty damn verbose, and astoundingly boring to boot. Outside of the unintentionally entertaining voice acting by the bad guys, this was a chore. I watched these with a couple of friends who I’ve been riffing on movies with for years, and the room was silent for most of the running time. If we couldn’t find much entertainment here, kids are going to tear their eyes out.
If you happen upon this DVD in a bargain bin, I can loosely recommend picking it up. Both features are pretty straight-forward at face value, but the voice acting and animation are bad enough to get some amusement. Also, there are some horrid sing-a-longs on the DVD that use the same animation. In fact, they seem to be discarded scenes from other features, because the characters move their mouths as if they should be speaking, but there is no dialogue for them. Instead, the sing-a-long track is playing, which at first made me think that the characters were singing. I suppose that is one way to make up for a lost audio track or a spare bit of footage? I think they are only on the DVD to fill up all of the empty space on the disc, because combined both features probably don’t crack an hour of run time.
“The Omega Code” is pretty much what you should expect of a theatrical release by the televangelist extraordinaires at the Trinity Broadcasting Network. It is a conservative, evangelical trash script played out by mediocre actors under the hand of an incompetent director, all for the lowest possible cost (and it shows). “Omega Code” in particular plays off of the popularity of conspiratorial thinking and the general public anxieties surrounding the year 2000. The plot is focused around the thoroughly debunked conspiracy theory of “The Bible Code”, and (of course) the book of Revelations. The movie covers all of the Christian apocalypse themes that you would expect, with some conservative talking points thrown in for good measure (the UN is totally horrible, you guys). Just going by the Christian apocalypse beats, there’s the makings of a half-interesting end-of-the-world movie here, admittedly. However, this attempt was pretty badly whiffed on a number of fronts.
Trinity Broadcasting Network: the same quality brand that brought a Jesus theme park into the world
First off, the screenwriting is horrible. The dialogue is all excessively heavy-handed, every line oozing with self-importance. Nothing is subtle or inconspicuous at all, and that problem starts with the words that are on the page. The plot becomes completely unbelievable pretty damn quickly, unless you live in a conservative fantasy-land of constant fear. Part of the blame there has to go to the directing and the acting, but I don’t know how anyone could have made this script acceptable without dramatic re-writing. That said, the acting isn’t getting off without a mention.
These two aren’t getting out of this without some credit/blame
I’m not sure whether I love or hate Michael York’s performance in this movie. He goes from half-likable politician to mustache-twirling villain in a heartbeat, but does play a hammy evil role pretty impressively. Still, it is impossible to take Austin Powers’s boss seriously as (spoilers) the Anti-Christ. He is just way too over-the-top and goofy throughout the movie to consider a legitimate villain, and moments where he is supposed to come off as menacing play out as ridiculous. However, at least he isn’t Casper Van Dien. Or, to a lesser extent, Michael Ironside. Ironside, for one, is completely wasted in this movie as a one-dimensional B-villain who mostly exists to fire guns (occasionally) and smoke cigarettes (menacingly). He must have gotten a hefty paycheck, otherwise I can’t imagine why he would have considered this bit role. Van Dien, on the other hand, is given far too much responsibility in this film. The whole movie is essentially resting on his shoulders, which is an apocalyptic plan if I’ve ever heard of one. His acting, as usual, is just abysmal. His line deliveries are awful throughout the movie (I wouldn’t rely on him to deliver a pizza), and whenever he is depended on to really show his capabilities, he reveals his internal vacuum of talent to the world. Early on in the movie, his character is giving a motivational speech, which is supposed to set the tone and background for his character (as well as the premise for the movie). He needed to really convince the audience of his charisma and speaking abilities in that scene to sell his character, and he fails quite astoundingly. It essentially starts the whole movie off on the wrong foot.
To the movie’s credit, the special effects are not horrible for the financial constraints they were working with (the finale still looks pretty crappy, but I won’t harp on it). However, that’s definitely semi-polished brass on the Titanic that is this movie. The acting and writing in particular just drag this whole production down, to the point that it has sort of a cult following as a good-bad movie. In any case, it certainly failed in its intent to evangelize to the conspiracy theory crowd. The movie did its damnedest to do so though, injecting unnecessary computer-magic and millennium-related bits into the background here and there. In particular, the final shot of the film mentions the millennium as a new beginning (after Satan is defeated and all that jazz). The movie did do pretty well in the South preaching to its own choir, not unlike “God’s Not Dead” and a handful of other evangelical religious movies over the years. However, it has cemented itself as a bargain bin staple in recent years, right next to all of the Kirk Cameron “Left Behind” films. It did manage to spawn a comparably crappy sequel, which I intend to check out sometime in the near future. “The Omega Code” was briefly in the IMDb Bottom 100 some years ago, and still boasts an impressively low IMDb score at 3.4. I’m not super-surprised that it isn’t down there any more, as religious movies sort of live in their own dominion that most just try to ignore. At the same time, they do have their target audience, and those folks are going to relatively inflate the scores for movies like “The Omega Code” on any democratic ranking sites (such as IMDb). The movie certainly has a low enough quality to dwell in the Bottom 100, but not too lowly I don’t think. Little things like sound editing, cinematography, and continuity were adequate, which gives it a leg up on films like “Birdemic” and the MST3k movies in the Bottom 100 ranks. There is some fun to be had with this movie, but it isn’t on the top of my list for a good-bad watch.
Reviews/Trivia of B-Movies, Bad Movies, and Cult Movies.
![Misan[trope]y](https://misantropey.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/misantropeyhead1.png)
Misan[trope]y 
