Hoodrats (2004) Online

It's good to watch ultra-bad movies like these from time to time, because it reminds aspiring filmmakers like myself what NOT to do. I'm not exaggerating in the least bit when I say that "Hood Rats" is no better than a student film that a couple grade school kids shot with their parents' home video camera. At least if this movie were shot on video, the filmmakers would've wasted very little money. But they actually burned film on this crap? The main problem? The acting. The acting is absolutely horrendous! And the worst actor in the cast is the one playing the main character! If you're going to put a bad actor in your movie, at least make him be an extra. One of the things I liked about the movie was that it was made with a predominantly Latino cast. Luckily, almost all of them seem to speak English as a first language. The main actor, on the other hand, sounds like he literally learned English as they were shooting. He seems to pronounce every single line of dialogue with the wrong intonation. The most natural actor in the flick is probably the fat guy. He's far from great, but at least he seems somewhat comfortable with acting. Second problem? The script. There wasn't one. At least that's how it felt. Each scene goes on for about 10 minutes, and the characters just repeat the same lines of dialogue over and over and over and over again. See how annoying that was? That gives you a taste of what it was like to listen to the dialogue. And when the actors would forget their lines, they would just scream out the "f" word. Yes, it's that obvious. Third problem? The cinematography. Once again, there wasn't any. The most flashy camera move is the camera tilting up to the sky and transitioning to the next scene, which would start off on a ceiling and tilt down to the actors. As for the rest of the scenes, the director put absolutely no thought into the framing of the shots. The problem with cinematography in some really low-budget independent films is that it's either too artsy or too amateurish. In this case, the director didn't try period. I think if the acting were much better, this may have been a good experimental feature, with the camera serving the same purpose as the cameras on a reality TV show. In other words a gritty, documentary-esquire film that would make the audience feel like inside observers. The fourth problem? The DVD cover. Buyer beware: If you find this movie at your local video outlet, it will probably show a trio of beautiful Latinas on the cover. So naturally, I thought this movie would be about three beautiful female gang members (ala "Mi Vida Loca"). But these three women aren't even characters in the movie. They're literally extras in the last scene. The two main characters see the three women pass by, and start to ogle and cat-call them. But I'm sure the filmmaker wanted SOMEONE on this planet to buy this DVD, so what better way is there than to feature three hotties on the cover? Just like how you see Jack Nicholson on the cover of every DVD cover for "Little Shop of Horrors" when he only has about a 3 minute cameo (albeit a great cameo). On the bright side, "Hood Rats" showed me that anyone, and absolutely anyone, can make a piece of crap movie and try to distribute it. And I felt bad about some of the movies I did in high school. Maybe I should make a DVD out of those films and sell them.

I am not sure what the DVD picture has to do with the film. Two guys hang out on the street and try to pick up girls. Jimmy tells them he dropped off a package at their place. That leads to about a 15 minute of scene of back and forth with a cop. Then we have a long scene where they confront two criminal types who want the package. That is pretty much the whole film. Sorry for an spoilers.

Guide: F-word. No sex or nudity. Available on a multipack.

This movie was pain. You go into certain films with a feeling that they are going to be bad, but usually with a couple friends and a couple beers the process can be an enjoyable one. This movie is so bad it should literally be buried out in that pit they filled with old E.T. Atari cartridges. It hurt. The film literally consists of the same two guys repeating the same god-damned lines of badly written (possibly not even written) dialog for over an hour. You wait for the end and it never comes. It just continues to exist in this cinematic limbo. I would not recommend this to anyone, not for mockery, not for anything. Maybe a coaster. Maybe.