Alright, here's a movie I consider more underground, or uncared for. Strangeland was written by and directed by Twisted Sister's Dee Snider in 1998. The movie focuses around the internet predator 'Captain Howdy' and his torturous exploits in an effort to spiritually enlighten his victims, according to most film summaries. But this isn't most film summaries, is it?

I'll begin with the plot itself. The summary is a bit misleading, seeing as it's not all about Captain Howdy (we'll call him Howdy). The film focuses more around Howdy and detective Mike Gage. Gage is trying to catch him, Howdy acts like a cocky a-hole...for the whole film. The reason: Gage's daughter Genevieve, being an internet noob, thought Howdy was a 19 year old wanting to party. Haha, was she wrong.

An interesting tidbit: This movie has two climaxes. The first one happens during the middle of the film and is rather short, although I would have liked it to be a bit longer. The second climax was a let down compared to the first one. Just my opinion.

Next, characters. The only character I felt had depth was Howdy himself. Almost every scene he was in involved some witty sentence he made. Gage was a little emotionally dead in most of the film, until he saw his daughter in a body cage and getting her breast pierced with a medical catheter. Genevieve herself played a minor role once the first half of the film was over. However the assistant detective and Mrs. Gage, along with many other minor characters, were filled with emotion and depth.

Another tidbit: Howdy was played by Snider himself, and he walked around half naked for most of the film. eek Eww.

Setting time! The film takes place in the fictional town of Helverton, Colorado. Most of the action happen in the torture room in Howdy's house, with a few important scenes in the Gage household and the police station he works at. The last bit of the film takes place in a random apartment and a church, of all places. Only the church makes no sense at all.

Now, music. The music is very fitting for the film. There are a few instrumental pieces thrown in, but most of the film is from different rock bands. The opening credits are by Dee Snider and the end credits are Twisted Sister's cover of the song "Captain Howdy". There are little tidbits of different songs sprinkled throughout the film, mostly in Howdy's place. Most of the artists are some I've never even heard of, like Hed P.E, and two I was familiar with. In all, the soundtrack is very gritty and heavy, though it sloughs off near the end of the film. Personally, I loved it.

Effects are next. There aren't many special effects in this movie. And a lot of the tools used by Howdy are very real. If not, damn was I convinced. There is quite a few fake blood, of course. And the ever reliable fake human being.

Moving on, Howdy uses a lot of tools in his torture. The film utilizes medical tubing, catheters, body suspension hooks, a body cage, and my personal favorite, spreader bars. A lot of these tools looked like they came from the closet of an S&M doctors office. And as a bit of a kink, I couldn't help but become enraptured in the tools and go the the extent of looking them up.

As a whole, I wasn't too fond if this film. It's marketed as a horror film with an NC-17 rating for language and boobs. Asa horror film, I felt it was lacking in the substance needed. The only thing scary about it was watching Dee Snider walk around, half covered in tattoos and half covered in piercings ranging from 8 to 00 gauge. However, it did give me an interesting peek into the body modification culture and appealed to my darker, more sadistic side. The first climax, as I said before was short and upsetting, and the second one made me wonder why I even bothered to keep watching the film. It slowed down after said first climax as well, and I felt it was just dragging on to get past the one hour mark.

If I had to rate the film, I'd probably give it two out of five. The film is one hour, twenty seven minutes long if my memory serves me correct, and isn't hard to stumble across if you want to torrent it.

Forgive me, this is my first ever movie review. sweatdrop