SKELETON MAN (2004)

 

DIRECTED BY Johnny Martin

SCREENPLAY BY Frederick Bailey 

STARRING - Michael Rooker as Captain Leary, Casper Van Dien as Sgt. Oberon,  Jackie Debatin as Sgt. Cordero,  Eric Etebari as Lieut. York,  Timothy V. Murphy as Sgt. Terry,  Lisa Rodriguez as Sgt. Smith, David E. Ornston as Ross,  Paul Sampson as Nathan,  Sarah Ann Schultz as Lieut. Scott,  Nils Allen Stewart as Sgt. Rodriguez,  Noa Tishby as Sgt. Davis,  Jerry Trimble as Sgt. Lawrence,  Dominique Vandenberg as Cottonmouth Joe,  Robert Miano as Blind Indian.

PLOT - When a murderous supernatural entity is accidentally summoned by careless archeologists, a crack military commando squad known as Delta Force are sent in to contain the situation.

Led by thier commander Captain Leary, Delta Force find themselves alone in the wilderness and one by one they are being picked off by the remorseless skeletal being.

Will thier military training be enough to survive an encounter with Cottonmouth Joe - The Skeleton Man ?...

PERFORMANCES - This movie has a great theme song. It goes like this - " Skeleton Man. Skeleton Man. Does everything a skeleton can. He can creep. He can rot. Has everything that a skeleton's got. Look out - here comes Skeleton Man !"

Actually, ignore all of the above because I'm lying. This Spider Man inspired theme song does NOT appear in the film. I completely made it up. But if it DID, it would be by far the best thing about this steaming pile of shit.

Not even the normally reliable Michael Rooker can save this movie. The role of Captain Leary is the type of role Rooker could play in his sleep, and yes - that's exactly what he's doing in this film. I think if you looked in the dictionary for the definition of "phoning it in" you'd see the words "Michael Rooker in Skeleton Man". He just looks like he wants to grab his pay cheque and get the hell out of there before anyone notices him. A pity as he's usually great in any film he's in. Not here though.

An actor who has appeared in more than his fair share of cinematic turds is Casper Van Dien. He appears here as Sergeant Oberon - the token "pretty boy romantic" member of Delta Force. He shoots things. Flirts heavily with one of the squad's female members. Delivers a few "poetic" speeches and promptly gets killed. Van Dien clearly knows that this film's a pile of crap, but unlike Rooker he at least doesn't look embarrassed to be there. I guess he's just more used to appearing in really shitty films (let's face it - he's got a LOT of past form).

Apart from Rooker and Van Dien Delta Force appears to be comprised of a couple of grizzled male soldiers and a bunch of hot female soldiers who spend most of the movie wearing tight vest tops before being picked off by the murderous walking cadaver. The funniest member is the team's sniper (I can't remember the character's name, so I don't know who plays her) who comes out with lines like "If I can see it, I can shoot it" (yes love, you're a sniper - that's kind of the whole point) and "If it breaths, it can be killed". Needless to say our erstwhile lady sharpshooter doesn't remain breathing for very long once Cottonmouth Joe gets her in his sights.

SFX - Which brings us to Cottonmouth Joe himself - the titular Skeleton Man. This is what we get...

This is our resurrected native American undead killing machine - a man in a cheap Halloween costume.

A man in a cheap Halloween costume who rides a nervous looking horse. What happened to the gore drenched skeletal zombie with the dripping eyeball that we see on the DVD's cover ? I want to watch a film about him, not this overaged trick or treater !!!

As if that wasn't bad enough every time the Skeleton Man appears on screen his arrival is heralded by a really cheesy looking computer effect (he's supposed to be teleporting out of some kind of supernatural vortex or something). We get a few shots from his point of view - he appears to see things in a purple "heat vision" haze a bit like the Predator does. In fact the above comparison only serves to make you realise that this entire movie is nothing more than a cheap Predator knock off. Only instead of a really well executed and iconic movie monster fighting against a top of his game Arnold Schwarzenegger, we instead get a man in a pound shop seasonal costume fighting a bored looking Michael Rooker. Such is the rich tapestry of life.

There's also lots of pyrotechnics in this movie. Things explode. Cottonmouth Joe's horse looks terrified. Poor horsey...

VIOLENCE - To be fair the gore in this film isn't too bad. Heads get lopped off, people get impaled. Blood spits freely. The sniper chick gets it worst of all when she gets her head popped like a zit by Joe's tomahawk (that'll teach her to go around overstating the obvious every five minutes).

Many of these kills are filmed either in slow motion or are speeded up. It's a weird stylistic choice - I'm still not sure whether it was intentional or if it was just the cheaply produced DVD itself playing havock with my DVD player.

Eventually Michael Rooker kills the Skeleton Man by blowing him up. He still looks bored even at this critical juncture. Never mind Michael, at least you'll be going home in about ten minutes time.

RATING - Poorly conceived. Poorly executed. An unmitigated disaster and all round shitfest. Watching this film will make you ponder where you went wrong in life and at what point things started to go off the rails. Having said that it does have a certain amount of inept charm which saves it from being a complete waste of time.

3 disillusioned Michael Rookers out of 5.

ART -