DRANIAC

DRANIAC (2000)
US
Directed by Brett Piper

CAST:
Georgia Hatzis - Julie
Alexandra Boylan - Lisa
Ethan Krasnoo - Jake

PLOT:
     Some teenagers in an old house find that there's something evil in the water.

REVIEW:
     I remember when I was a kid and would always stay up late Friday and Saturday nights and watch USA when they had Up All Night on, as well as HBO, for the simple joy of hoping to catch some weird or really bad horror movie. Needless to say I've seen some really truly bad movies due to this and I'm not afraid to admit it. From schlocky sci-fi to wannabe zombie and mad scientist movies. I was always looking forward to the next movie never knowing what the next 90 minutes plus would bring and enjoying the anticipation even if the outcome was less than ideal which happened about half the time and the true amazing ones were even harder to find. At least with half of them I had fun watching.

     One thing I'm happy about sometimes is the ability to make it through the first five minutes of movies without turning it off. I can count on one hand the number of times I have turned off a movie. This movie was almost one of them thanks to the terrible acting of the two "actors" at the start of the movie and their terrible lines of dialogue. Thankfully the script does get better but it's a long way from being considered good and at its best it can only be considered above average. I mean how far can you take a demon in control of water?  In all actually it can be taken pretty damn far with what all that can be done with it. It's just to bad that Piper can't seem to be able to think in an odd way to get this done. Piper doesn't even know what to do with the story of the big bad as he can't decide if it's a slime monster or a ghost. Yet Piper does know what type of movie he's making and he went with it and doesn't apologize one bit. One thing that makes this better than most of the recent low budget films coming out these days is the look of the film as it was filmed with actual film cameras and not digital cameras which basically over-saturates the colors and gives it a bad American soap opera type feel.

     The acting I will say is give or take throughout the whole movie as some you can tell were just there for a paycheck, if they got one, while others actually tried to have fun with what they were giving. Georgia Hatzis is probably the most competent actor out of the cast but yet at the same time you can tell she gets tired at points in the story although she still trudges through it. Alexandra Boylan as well does a decent job with what she was giving as Haztis' friend in the movie and support for the rest of the friends if you can call them that from the way they treat each other for half the movie but at least they know what type of movie they're making. As for Steven Bornstein as Hatzis' father, I just got to say there's a difference in playing an ass and pretending to play an ass and Bornstein doesn't know how to do either except play indifference and raise his voice thinking that will work. It doesn't and thankfully I didn't have to suffer watching him on screen to much.

     So does that mean Drainiac is bad? Yes it is, but in a good way, where if you can get past the first 5 minutes of two bums fighting each other it does get good enough to have fun with and that's all someone can really ask for in a movie like this. There is something to be said about stop motion animation and in camera effects in a movie like this instead of CG and with the budget this movie had it was a very wise decision as it just adds to the feel of the movie instead of putting the viewer out. If you watched any of the old Vestron or Full Moon films this harkens back to those movies of where anything goes and it's just better to go along with what ever is happening instead of trying to understand any of it.  Just enjoy and the ride is all the more better and kinda fun, after the first five minutes.


BEST DEATH:
     The extreme water-boarding of Plummer.


FUN FACTS:
     Piper on the commentary track reveals how the film was made for $10,000 in just 7 days.

     Piper was working on a HD-DVD version of the film, but we all know how HD-DVD turned out, and was never finished.

     For those that watch the credits, the usual disclaimer at the end of the film is different. Here it is:
This motion picture is a work of fiction and all characters portrayed herein are pretty much the products of the writer /director / producer's warped imagination.