Just the Ticket #187: Curse III: Blood Sacrifice
a.k.a. The Ticketmaster.
The banner for today's review looks the way it does because I don't care enough about this movie to make a bigger effort.
For the 187th issue of Just the Ticket, I could have been reviewing 187 with Samuel L. Jackson. But instead, I had to force myself to watch Curse III: Blood Sacrifice, the second "sequel" in what someone with a saintly amount of generosity might call an "anthology series" if they didn't know any better. It took me six sittings of boredom, annoyance, boredom, social discomfort, boredom, confusion, and boredom (because I don't care enough to count correctly, either, and it was boring), but here we are.
While visiting her Dutch South African husband (Andre Jacobs, who's been in three Nelson Mandela movies and played Detective Roemer in the Natalie Holloway Story, among other minor roles), Elizabeth Armstrong (Dallas and Three's Company actress Jenilee Harrison) incurs the wrath of an unhinged local witch doctor (Dumi Shongwe), who places a curse on her and her family...that does nothing. Elizabeth is pregnant, but despite his threats, that never really becomes a factor. The witch doctor just goes around, stalking her through the sugarcane like this is some kind of bad (good?) Children Of the Corn ripoff, and beheading or otherwise murdering her family and friends until she burns him to death in the cane fields, further suggesting that Panga: Curs3: Blllood Sacriiifiiice is a Children Of the Corn ripoff. The gore is pretty sensational, there are a few average red herrings (Shaka Zulu himself, Henry Cele, cuts an imposing figure here as plantation foreman Mletch, until his untimely beheading by the too-obvious real villain), and Harrison is a solid, if hammy, dramatic lead (Elizabeth's various mental breakdowns where she attempts to ward off madness and the "curse" by chanting "America" are unintentionally hilarious). But the generic, "cursed by a foreigner" plot and "Africans will be Africans" (read: bloodthirsty savages with horrible, antiquated customs and an easily exploitable work ethic) demeanor of the white characters makes the viewing experience alternately boring and uncomfortable because, as I said, when there's no body count, it's all thinly veiled racism, cheap jumpscares, menial chores, and beach sex (yes, a couple get panga'd to death during beach sex, because horror movie).
So because I haven't gotten to why this movie is confusing yet, in comes Hammer Dracula, Scaramanga, Saruman, and Count Dooku himself, the late Christopher Lee! Here, he plays a doctor of the non-witch variety, and goes about in an ice cream suit (which looks fly as hell, and along with his beard, makes him the whitest thing in the movie, like if Colonel Sanders was God, but also British). Amidst the insomnia-curing dialogue, psychological breakdowns, non-curses, and the witch doctor stalking and murdering people, there's this jumbled nonsense of a subplot involving the doctor (who may or may not be in league with the witch doctor), a ceremonial staff from the Armstrongs' African art collection, and lore of an ancient aquatic vengeance demon.
The sound editing throughout the movie makes it seem like the witch doctor's curse was what summoned the monster (as if new viewers who don't know what to expect will somehow know there's supposed to be a sea monster on an African sugar plantation in a movie where we don't see a beach until halfway through the runtime), but it's always either the witch doctor himself or someone doing a jumpscare...until it isn't that and the movie is almost over.
So, I think the way this whole other confusing plot went was that the doctor thought Elizabeth was really cursed, so he talked her husband into giving him the staff so he could summon the monster to...kill the witch doctor, maybe? Or kill Elizabeth and her family like the witch doctor was already doing anyway? But then he backpedals and sacrifices a goat, hoping that the monster will go away. But then Elizabeth shoots someone or something that "smells like decay and fish" but looks like a person in raggy clothing holding a panga, and she burns the witch doctor, so then the monster finally shows up and it's this dopey, Power Rangers/Goosebumps/Scooby-Doo fish-gator thing, also wielding a panga, and Elizabeth burns that, too, but the ending kind of looks like the monster and/or the witch doctor might still be alive somehow? I don't understand.
I don't understand how I started off this review not caring and ended up saying so much. I don't understand how I've watched three movies called Curse where two of them deal with radioactive mutation and the one that could possibly have a curse in it ends up with a villain so bad at his job that he has to kill people himself. I don't understand how a movie with Christopher Lee and a fish-alligator demon in it could be so difficult to sit through. I don't understand how this movie's plots coherently fit together or why the creators didn't just pick one. And I don't shitting know how the asshole I made it this far into into a review of a movie this fuck without some cursing of my own.
F
I know I said previously that I was also going to review Catacombs, a.k.a. Curse IV: The Ultimate Sacrifice this month. But silly me, next Friday isn't in July anymore. Also, this week's movie kind of broke me with the Curse series, so I decided I'm done with them. Also again, I just learned that Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood & Honey II exists because its marketing was as bad as my experience watching the first Blood & Honey, so I'd rather watch that instead for the first Friday in August.
Stay Tuned and as always, please remember to Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, leave a comment at the bottom of this post and any others you have opinions about, don't interrupt any goat sacrifices, help out my ad revenue as you read because I don't care enough to come up with a decent pun right now, and follow me on BlueSky, Tumblr, Reddit, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest news and coverage on my content.
Tickemaster,
Out Of Patience.
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