Those of you with a long memory will recall my less than favourable review of film called Megalodon. It boasted terrible special effects, abysmal acting and a story that was basically a cross between The Abyss and Jaws without the good bits. It also had an unforgivably fake CGI prehistoric shark that looked like it was a stop motion puppet made by the red headed stepchild of Ray Harryhausen.
These two points bring me directly to the case of the made of TV film Ogre which may in its’ own way be worse than Megalodon.
The movie opens in the remote village of Ellensford, Pennsylvania in 1859. Ellensford itself is a bit of a strange puzzle: For a start it’s a remote farming community that doesn’t have any farmland. The village is surrounded on all sides by thick woods and is choking under the weight of a long winter. Plague is ravaging the inhabitants and worst of all the village is clearly either the original set from M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village or a very close replica.
The Village itself was a flawed classic, a suspenseful period thriller that was spoiled by its’ creators desperate need to throw in shock twists at the conclusion of his movies. It could have been great but it turned out purely mediocre. In fact the main reason I watch this film was the mistaken belief that it was a low budget version of The Village. How wrong I was to make such an assumption.
The instant the movie begins we’re presented by a bleak orchestral score and images of two men burying people in a mass grave. This is followed by a family covered in boils being locked in an underground Pit of DoomTM due to fear of the plague sweeping the village. The town mayor dies of the plague without us even getting a look at the actor’s face (easy money there eh?) The fearful villagers turn to the local evil wizard Henry Bartlett looking for an answer. Seems a bit weird that a mid 1800′s town in Pennsylvania would have a wizard but no local minister doesn’t it, sort of makes you think there might be something weird going on. Whatever the reason it’s clear that something is rotten in the town of Ellensburg.
Bartlett as the local power mad evil wizard type manages to get himself voted mayor before he’ll lift a finger to help the rest of the villager. Then in a fit of over dramatic arm waving he casts a spell over the village that frees them of their plague. Unfortunately for everyone in this sorry excuse for a village Bartlett doesn’t know any actual healing spells, so he dials infernal enquires on 118-HELL instead who promptly give him the number of a man eating monster. This is doubly unfortunate for the poor family incarcerated in the Pit of DoomTM the evil plague is condensed and made manifest as a monster inside their prison. No idea what happens to them after the flash of light but I assume it’s not good. Strangely the magic also converts what was a shallow dugout into a deep underground cave for reasons that will become apparent later.
The scene cuts to some time later with a voice over from Bartlett. This exposition explains that every winter solstice they have to choose and sacrifice one of villagers in payment for their continued deliverance. Two armed men dutifully drag a protesting prisoner out in the snow and chain him to a set of stocks in the middle of the village. He struggles to free himself, his attempts to free himself become more and more frantic as footsteps and noises approach from the woods. Now if the prelude had stopped here it would have been OK. Tension was building, suspense was building. If the monster had even remained out of shot when it grabbed the sacrifice things would have been fine and I wouldn’t have knocked 10 points of the score. Instead we’re treated to the image of a lumbering pot bellied beast that looks like a shaven gorilla zombie stomping out of the woods. Seriously, this thing looks like a fan made render of the trolls from Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings.
The difference is those things had character, they were brutish engines of destruction who demonstrated immense strength and resilience. The Ogre just looks like an angry fat man with a bear gut. It’s about as scary as a chinchilla. It also walks like a grossly overweight man who shat his pants after neds stole his mobility scooter for a joyride. The troll roars and mugs at the camera for about five minutes before finally ripping the hapless sacrifice off the stocks and dragging his body into the woods.
The real story begins over a hundred years later as four modern day teenagers are searching through a bleak New-England forest for the town. To call any of these four empty headed fools as characters is a disservice to any real characters that ever existed. Hell I even baulk at the idea of referring the four people playing them as actors. For simplicities sake and because I lost interest in them within minutes I’ve decided to name them based on their overriding character feature.
Clockwise from the top left we have Terry, Mike, Jessica and Leigh.
Terry who instantly drew my attention simply by the fact that he is sporting a totally unexplained black eye. No attempt is made to explain this prominent wound at any point during the movie. I would dwell on this all day, but he promptly fell and broke his ankle too. In honour of this incredibly bad fortune I’ve decided to refer to him as Lucky. Now Lucky is the reason they’re out there in the woods. In true movie style he’s bought a map off the internet that shows where Ellensford should be, he’s also got a book full of paper clippings that show evidence of its’ continued existence.
He’s quickly joined on screen by Mike, who I’ve decided to call Keanu-a-like because he looks like Keanu Reeves in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. Keanu-A-Like complains about being dragged out into the woods on a fool’s quest but admits that it’s, and I quote “a fun excuse to go camping”. He also quickly establishes that there’s no mobile reception, oh goody now they can’t call for help (horror movie cliché checklist at the ready folks).
Keanu-a-like is quickly joined by Jessica the prerequisite Feisty Brunette who helps him in berating Lucky for dragging them out into the wilderness.
Then finally there’s Leigh who I’ll call The Blonde, who’s not all that blonde but she acts like every stereotypical “Blonde in Peril” since the first silent era movie. Her greatest hits include such gems as protesting that “she doesn’t know how to set up camp” and that she’s “had it with the stupid trees.”
With the introductions and argumentative character building over, Lucky promptly falls over a line of stones that mark the outer boundary of Ellensford. He breaks his ankle and they four decide to split up. Keanu-A-Like and The Brunette decide to go and get help leaving Mr Lucky and The Blonde to fend for themselves in the woods.
Naturally the two rocket scientists head straight towards the legendry town instead of backtracking to civilisation. This mainly involves a drawn out march along a long abandoned dirt track that’s easily followed due to the 4×4 tracks running along it. Those puritans and their legendry coal driven ghost jeeps need to be more discrete in future. The pair then crosses through a barrier saying in Ye Olden English “Towne Closed and No Trespassing” and head on up the remarkably clear road. Incidentally I refuse to believe that there’s a square centimetre of the Eastern United States that’s outside the reach of a mobile phone tower nowadays.
Meanwhile Lucky is back on his feet hopping around the forest in search of clues to the fate of the town. He argues a bit with The Blonde as she dutifully follows him around moaning her way through some character development. Without warning they come across a pair of old wooden doors built into the side of a mound of earth. It’s the Pit of DoomTM from earlier. Naturally Lucky does the only sensible thing and bursts them open to look into the pit. It’s suddenly got a lot deeper and more like a cavern that a dugout. That Ogre’s been busy. Lucky has another bit of banter with The Blonde and then a huge badly made CGI arm drags him into the pit, chews him up and spits out his severed leg for The Blonde to catch. The Ogre then clambers out of the Pit of DoomTM.
The Blonde is naturally disturbed by this turn of events as she screams at the Ogre and high-tails it out of dodge. The ogre follows her, shambling along with his pants still full of crap.
Feisty Brunette and Keanu-A-Like meanwhile have found Ellensford. The town looks exactly like it did in the prologue and nobody has aged at all in the intervening century and a half. They spy on a town meeting where Bartlett chooses the next sacrifice for the Ogre. This time it’s his daughter’s boyfriend Stephen and she tries to protest against it to no avail. Feisty Brunette and Keanu-A-Like are predictably captured and thrown in the town lockup while protesting their Miranda rights etc. They beg for some help for Lucky and The Blonde and Bartlett sends some men out to find them reasoning that he could sacrifice the four strangers instead of some of his own people.
The Blonde meanwhile is running through the forest. Irrationally she decides that the best thing to do with a three story high monster chasing her is to stop and have a wee cry for ten minutes allowing the shambling half-mile an hour fat ass to catch up with her. Seriously now, if this thing moved at the pace of a human I could just about believe it, but it plods along like it’s on its’ way to a weight-watcher’s line dancing class. It doesn’t even sneak up on her, you can hear it coming a mile away but she turns round, looks it in the eye and whimpers a bit. The Ogre then roars a bit, mugs some more for the camera and with a couple of big slashes to the torso The Blonde exits stage left.
Feisty Brunette and Keanu-A-Like are still in the town lockup where we’re treated to a bit of exposition from Stephen on the origins of the Ogre. Meanwhile the Ogre slaughters some villagers that were sent out to find Lucky and the Blonde.
Bartlett’s daughter Hope argues with her father about why he’s done nothing about the Ogre for all this time. He refuses to see it her way and sends her away with a flea in her ear. News reaches Bartlett that their search party hasn’t returned and he becomes mighty annoyed.
Hope then overhears her father’s plans to sacrifice the strangers in place of his own people. She takes it upon herself to rescue them and her boyfriend from the lockup and the four flee towards the edge of the town. The Ogre chases them forcing Keanu-A-Like, Feisty Brunette and Stephen across the ring of stones around the town. The Ogre can’t follow due to a force field of some kind Stephen bursts into a bright light and disappears. Feisty Brunette and Keanu-A-Like run away into the night at Hope’s urging without even taking a minute to look for their two friends. The village wakes up to find that the sacrifice has not been carried through and the Bartlett has disappeared.
Hours later Keanu-A-Like and Feisty Brunette are plodding through the forest arguing about their next course of action. They find a tarmac road and follow it to civilization.
Meanwhile Bartlett is confronted in the woods by Hope. She suddenly reveals that he has taught her lots about magic and she’s packing a magic pendant that protects her from evil. The pendant repels her father who she accuses of being evil. It’s revealed that her father caused the plague to gain power in the town and used the ritual to do away with his rivals and critics in the town. Hope abandons him in the woods where Bartlett is confronted and killed by the Ogre. Yet again this huge lumbering pant’s crapping bad rubber monster manages to sneak up on a perfectly health human being. Bartlett tries to use his magic but the ogre just looks at him funny and then gives him a short back and sides. He calls it an “Unclean beast” and just stands there as it kill him. Doesn’t anybody know how to run in this movie?
The people of the town call a panicked meeting and start slinging blame around like a middle management meeting of the local council. Hope bursts in and announces she can save them all. She gives them all magic candles to ward off the Ogre.
While Ellensford is imploding on itself Keanu-A-Like and Feisty Brunette do the only sensible thing when confronted by a supernatural mystery: They hitch a ride with a passing car to the local sheriff’s office where the sheriff quickly laughs his ass off at them. Unable to convince him Keanu-A-Like and Feisty Brunette do the only other sensible thing. They steal his police cruiser from outside the sheriff’s office while he and his deputy stare after them in awe and stupefaction. Damn city slickers.
The drive until they get stuck on the dirt road then retrieve a shotgun from the boot and hoof it the rest of the way towards Ellensford. Surprisingly there’s no sign of any pursuit by the local sheriff. You’d expect at least a police helicopter by now surely or maybe some distant sirens? The Ogre meanwhile is getting in some exercise as he slashes the crap out of the second search party.
In Ellensford Hope has managed to get everyone to throw salt around the doors and light magic candles to keep out the Ogre. The Ogre initially isn’t impressed and tries to attack the village anyway but it finds the barriers around the village impenetrable even to its’ monumental beer gut. Naturally one of the asshole villagers manages to knock over their candle and cant get it lit resulting in their brutal slaughter by the enraged ogre.
Keanu-A-Like and Feisty Brunette turn up at the village and blast the Ogre with God’s own weapon, the shotgun sending it fleeing off through the forest. The town calls up another meeting and they manage to convince themselves that living forever with a yearly bloody sacrifice isn’t all that hot after all. They come up with a plan to bait the Ogre while Hope cooks up a spell to do away with it forever.
The half dozen remaining villagers arm up with muskets and pointy sticks and lay an ambush for the ogre with Keanu-A-Like as the bait. The brainless big bastard wanders out of the forest in his unclean underwear and has a go at eating the teenager only get his foot stuck in a bear trap and be force fed 00-buckshot instead.
Hope meantime is busy chanting away trying to break her fathers spell. The villagers tear into the Ogre with bows and muskets but it breaks loose and starts slaughtering them one by one in spectacularly gruesome style. Realising they can’t stop the thing with hot lead Keanu-A-Like and Feisty Brunette run off to lure it to the edge of town. Once there they distract it with shotgun shells till hope can cast a spell to destroy the creature once and for all. Finally after a couple of half arsed attempts she manages to catapult it over the edge of the stone line demarking the town and it explodes in a burst of light. Hope says thanks to Keanu-A-Like and Feisty Brunette and disappears along with the rest of the villagers in a flash of light.
There’s still no sign of the local authorities after the theft of the cruiser though as Keanu-A-Like and Feisty Brunette return to the real world no doubt to jail time for grand theft auto. That’s if the local law enforcement don’t manage to pin Lucky and The Blonde’s murders on the pair of them. Should be fairly easy as their bodies are mostly missing, the sheriff’s guns been fired repeatedly and all the witnesses have all disappeared in a flash of light.
All in all Ogre is a terrible movie, and for the straight to video/made for TV market that’s saying something. The Ogre himself is a terrible lumbering beast but his character could just as easily have been a remorseless psychopath like Jason Vorhees. The cast were wooden and unlovable to the extent that I spent the movie looking for anachronisms and plot holes, some of which I’ve outlined above.
C’est Terrible.
