SPOILER ALERT
It’s time for Rifftrax! The trio of Michael J. Nelson, Bill Corbett, and Kevin Murphy are back to find humor out of some of the worst cinema they can find. Today though they have found something truly magnificent in terms of just how bad a film they brought. This train wreck is known as Samurai Cop, complete with a short about the importance of Manners In School.
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Manners In School
Once again the guys have been able to uncover a lost PSA film which features some type of bizarre animated character teaching a human a valuable life lesson. In this case, Chakly, a talking chalk drawing teaches a boy named Larry about how he needs to have manners while in school. The jokes from the trio about Larry’s behavior being closer to a psychopath than a jerk are hilarious. Larry also takes the time to erase Chalky by the end of the short and of course the comedy was on poignant here as well.
Samurai Cop
A vicious gang known as the Katana are the new heads of the Cocaine Trade in LA. To combat this threat, a Cop from San Diego named Joe Marshall (Matt Hannon) is brought into even the odds. Joe’s skills and his intense training have earned him the nickname of Samurai and together with new partner Frank (Mark Frazer), they will work to stop the Katanas from taking over the city.
To a riff a film is not as easy as people think it is. You can’t simply just put on a bad movie and expect to find the humor in it. It has to have a special mixture of poorly written script, bad acting, and insanely bad production work. Luckily, Samurai Cop has all this and more!
First off the script feels like it was written by a ten year old who just discovered swear words. The direction is beyond abysmal to the point you start to ask if they did any second shots of these scenes. The production is garbage, to the point audio doesn’t sync up at times, the soundtrack sounds like it was made for an old Nintendo Game, and the special effects don’t even look halfway believable. A man gets his arm chopped off in the least believable way put to film.
This could all be saved if there was a cast which had exceptional skill and were able to truly move the soul with their performance. Unfortunately, this film features actors giving some of the worst performances seen in awhile. Did any of them have any training? There so much awkward mugging at the camera you could make a drinking game out of it. Few lines delivered throughout the film are actually delivered in a way a normal person would talk.
As always when it comes to Rifftrax, the worse the film is the more the trio has to to work with and they really soar with everything Samurai Cop gives them. This is some of the best comedy they have done in years and was the perfect way to start off the new year of shows they have planned. This material is the new level of quality they will need to strive for as they move forward in the future. The film goes a little long but thanks to all the jokes it never feels stretched out or awkward. This was truly an event Rifftrax fans need to experience.
Conclusion
Thus Samurai Cop, a film so bad, it was used for so much humor came to a close. It is only a shame they didn’t make more of it. It will take the trio a long time to find a movie lacking quality and substance like this one. Wait…this has thing has a sequel…starring Tommy Wiseau….RIFFTRAX! You are needed once more!
Rifftrax: Samurai Cop was presented through Fathom Events.
