Steven DeNeal
What can I say about this film? It is pretty rough around the edges.... and sides... and middle too. Shot in rural Canada, this film tries to tell the story of a youthful hero who discovers a plot by an evil occult to take over the world. What this story really tells depends upon your perspective. On the one hand, you have a weak and whiny hero who remains static through the whole story. On the other hand, you have the other hero who actually does all the work and yet remains barely likable. Or from yet another perspective, you have a supremely evil villain who wears a rather nice rain coat that looks oddly like my own military issue raincoat.Despite all the bad things I can say about it which has already been well documented in previous reviews, I will say that it does have a certain quality that I do like. Myself having acted in a few ultra-low budget films, there is something very familiar about the feel of this one. For example, this is a tale of high adventure and world domination.... that feels like all the scenes were shot within a five mile radius of each other. The acting looks very similar to what I am used to as well, where the director hops on the phone to call up friends and relatives to fill a role.Ultimately, it is a bad film, but it does give me such nostalgia what I actually do watch it occasionally just for the fun of it. Give it a try, but I suggest, before you do, that you leave your brains at the door. It will make more sense that way.
duane-bradley
Damn! This is one strange pony to talk about. Let me just take a chronological repetition of what bothers me with the plot. Shall we? Why do the Ziox gang have such an inconvenient dress-code? Isn't it rather obvious you're a no-good with a black pillow-case on your head, and wouldn't you be freezing you nipples of if you had to wear nothing but a tank-top all year? Maybe it's only the ones in command like Satoris who can wear a coat and go un-masked? When Troy search the casket in the attic and find the badly drawn demons and map, what was he really looking for in the first place? What did he believe could explain his fathers dead? How do Satoris and his gang know Troy found the map, how do they know how to find him, and why do they start wrecking his home when they obviously know their way around fine without the map? When a trucker probably knows "a little of everything", it's still rather unusual that Troy doesn't raise a single suspicious question when Zap explains all about prehistoric cultures of Canada! When the Ziox capture Zap in their secret lair, why do they pass up the chance to snatch Troy too and save all later trouble?When Zap fight his way through the hordes of bad-guys who all look alike, why do he never figure out to dress up in one of them's tank-top and pillow case and hide among them till the right moment? It is his trucker-pride that stands in the way?How do the hermit Mike know so much about the past of people he never met? And where do he stock his horse?Why are Satoris so eager to get his hands on Troy when it seems like everyone could do for "the final sacrifice"? And what happens when the lost city finally raises? Is it a spaceship or what?And I think I just could go on. About the grabling hook, Troy's aunt who never are heard of again and the cheesy papier-mache idols. How Troy is a creepy, whiny tard, and our hero Zap Rowsdower is an alcoholic slob with a name that's even weirder than the directors. Guess he just worked after and got carried away by the thumb-rule that whenever someone or something has to sound cool or mysterious, it has to be named something with Z or X. You could imagine that if Troy instead had been a pretty, young woman, and Zap had been a more attractive Kurt Russel-like type, it would all be a little easier to swallow. But then would we talk about it to this day? Recently an interview with the actor playing Zap was unleashed on Youtube, where he explains how it was a learn-by-doing project for everyone involved and his thoughts about the character he played. While it certainly didn't made the movie any better, it did help me admire the effort of getting it done. Bless you Mr. Rowsdower!
Nyx_Selene
Oh dear, oh dear…So, the story of Ziox... maybe: A long time ago, an advanced civilization known as "Ziox" prospered. The people started worshiping an evil idol, so the regular god/gods were angered and punished them through forces of nature, causing their main city (or ONLY city, as it were) to be swallowed by the earth. The survivors continued to live alongside humans and… and by this point I'm just guessing.Here's the story of the movie: Seven years ago a guy was shot by a cult of supposedly, maybe Ziox-descendants. What we know for sure, is that the cult consists of ski mask guys in tank tops, that they're led by the black-clad Satoris, and that I start laughing every time I see him.In present time, the shot guy's skinny, teenage son Troy for the first time rummages through his dad's old stuff, and manages to find a folder marked "ZIOX" in 4 inch letters. It's filled with what looks like kids' drawings, and according to dad's notes, one of them is a one-of-a-kind map leading to the sunken city.Cut scene to anonymous hobo trying to start his truck in some dusty place. It won't start, and we never get to see hobo's face, so this scene is only in the movie to establish that the truck's crap, I guess?In the meantime, and also for the first time in seven years, the cult manages to find out where the guy they shot lived, and comes looking for the "map". Luckily, Troy has a bike (no, not a motorcycle, a regular ten-speed bike), so he outruns both the cult and their car, and ends up in the back up the crappy truck. We now get to see hobo's face for the first time, AND... he's a flabby, mustasched drunk. As if this wasn't bad enough, he's named Zap Rowsdower. (Is there anything that says "hero" like a fat drunk called Zap Rowsdower?)By sheer coincidence, Zap is one of the two humans in the world, or at least Canada, who know about the cult, so they talk a bit about it. The crappy truck breaks down somewhere, and what do you know – when Troy goes to get water, he finds stones that look like they're marked on the map. This is just a few minutes walk off the main road, and after a few minutes more, he (and Zap, who successfully ran after him without getting a heart-attack) finds a tunnel. Down it, there's some remnants of the Ziox civilization (?), and what I mean to say by that, is: Holy crap, those are cheap sets! Ugly, ugly papier maché. But expert Zap concludes that the tunnel "must have been dug hundreds of years ago". Guess that's the reason why everything's so untouched by time and nature down there. Anyway, while they're into finding stuff, they find a cabin belonging to Yosemite Sam's older brother. He greets them with a shotgun, but no worries: When Zap for the first and only time calls Troy "McGreggor" instead of "Troy",by another sheer coincidence, Yosemite turns out to be the OTHER of the only two humans who know about the cult - as well as Troy's dead dad's old friend. Now that all is well, the shotgun is put away, and Yosemite mutters out the history of Ziox, and how Troy's dad revealed the place of it and whatever. Oh yeah, by now we know that Zap was one of the cult, since he's a "half-blood" – which means Ziox people weren't human, or perhaps just not Canadian. Not sure what makes up the other half. Troy takes out the map and by drawing four lines on it (of which two are unnecessary), Yosemite marks out "the exact location of the city" - on a map that's never even been near according to scale. Oh, well...Next time we meet Satoris, he's taken Troy to the place of the evil idol – which can probably be seen from the road, by the way. Rumour has it that a human sacrifice will bring an undead, invincible army, which Satoris wants to get in order to take over the world. Very original... Zap comes too, without doing any actual searching for the place, so I guess the map really WAS exact. He finds a grappling hook just lying around and tries fighting Satoris. He's crap at it, but it doesn't matter since Troy shoots Satoris in the back with a shotgun, that was also just lying around. Satoris bursts into flame and the idol falls down for some reason, and the sunken town magically shows up again - all clean! The ski mask guys go to the town and Troy and Zap ride into the sunset in the crappy truck, after a heartfelt embrace.
J C
Well, I've never seen a Huffy outrace a muscle car... but I guess when you are making a completely irrational film it is certain to happen somewhere along the line. I think you can count the lines of dialogue in the first thirty minutes on two hands. I guess the director's rationale was that it's better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid, than to open it and remove all doubt. Then again I think assuming there was any rationale involved in the production this movie is giving the director too much credit.This film has some of the most hilarious chase scenes I have ever seen. First you have Troy's epic escape from machete wielding villains via his mountain bike. I swear this scene would not end. Literally ten minutes are spent tracking Troy as he eludes a car full of goons on his Huffy. Eventually the heroes give up chasing this kid in a car and decide to foot it. Sadly enough, they come closer to catching him on foot than they did when they chased him with their car. Finally, when it seems as though these villains are about to catch Troy, he hops into the back of a truck. This is no ordinary truck, however. This is a truck owned by the dumb, drunken protagonist Zap Rowsdower... yes, Zap Rowsdower. This guy is a cross between John Candy and Joe Dirt. I think that I could use my ass cheeks as a face and be a more effective actor than this guy. Anyway, after Zap and Troy reach a gas station another hilarious chase scene ensues. Of course Zap and Troy have the last laugh. The funniest part about this scene is when the villains car treads off of a hill and takes a long winded drive towards a creek. The scene could have easily been ended by just blowing up the car, or by the villains simply hitting the brakes but NO. For dramatic effect the director had the villains speed across a 500 feet straightaway into a creek.The chase scenes are all good and fun, but the supporting cast is what makes this movie so "fun" to watch. ESPECIALLY the character Mike Pipper. This character is a hybrid - one part Macho Man Randy Savage, one part Ted Kaczynski. I was just waiting for him to shout out "Ooooh Yea!!!" after every single line. And let us not forget the performance of "Satoris", the antagonist of the film. Satoris, as we learn, is hell- bent on taking over the world. He plans on achieving this by sacrificing our virginal protagonist, Troy. Unfortunately he doesn't succeed. After a bunch of useless scenes, horrible acting, and utterly retarded dialogue the "climax" is reached when Troy kills Satoris and in doing so saves the world from the necessity to continue this horrible film.
