Made for sci-fi movies are great. Not "Lord of the Rings" great, or indy movie great, or even summertime blockbuster great, but genre-film great. Some decent dialogue, some comic relief, a few decent tricks with the genre-induced expectations, some stock characters and some depth, and occasionally decent direction. Sure, the plots usually unravel halfway through, but I enjoy these movies on a weekend. Especially when I'm folding laundry or doing other chores.
I just watched one about a Sasquatch that's killing people in the woods in the west somewhere (Colorado?). You've got bank robbers running into the woods, the local cops chasing them, Bishop the android coming after everyone because his wife was killed by a hit-and-run 12 years ago and with her last dying flip of the camcorder somehow recorded a sasquatch in the woods, and Cerina Vincent (who was in Cabin Fever, a reasonable horror movie from around 2003) as the hostage.
Before this there was the movie about the werewolf next door who thought that his cute teenage neighbor was his long-lost love. I didn't see the whole movie but what I saw had good comic relief, like the geeky teenage neighbor who also has a thing for the girl, the spunky little brother, and of course Kevin Sorbo, Hercules himself, as an actor who plays a big-game hunter.
I guess what fascinates me about sci-fi channel movies is that they're just like a typical Scooby Doo episode. Seriously, think about it... The beginning of each Scooby Doo episodes has a great setting and some kind of scary monster. The haunted swamp. The haunted amusement park. The haunted jungle with the Jaguaro. There's a new mystery to solve, with tons of potential!
Then we cut from the creepy setting that was just established to the Scooby gang, at the malt shop or in the Mystery Machine, and they somehow get stuck wherever the mystery is happening. At this moment, a Scooby Doo episode has peaked, and will play out the same way as every other episode. Some kind of trap with Shaggy and Scooby as the bait, the unmasking, the "meddling kids" line. If I could just watch the first half of Scooby Doo episodes, I'd be thrilled.
Sci-fi channel movies are quite similar. They establish a creepy setting, some stock characters, one or two heroes, some comic relief. If you're lucky there will be one or two spots where the genre conventions set you up for one thing, but something else happens instead.
Unfortunately, sci-fi channel movies usually play out in the same mostly uninteresting fashion as a typical Scooby Doo episode. This reminds me of how difficult it must be to end a movie, even when you've got a great set-up.
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