We’re going to need a bigger bucket of weedkiller…
To celebrate the news that EA are bringing the highly-addictive Plants vs Zombies Garden Warfare to Xbox One and Xbox 360 on February 28, JOE decided to side with the plants this week and pick our three favourite films starring foul flora.
The Happening (2008)
M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening was absolutely slated by critics and audiences alike upon release in 2008 and rightly so. The film, when treated as a supernatural thriller – as the director intended – appears to be a badly-written, terribly-acted movie about a murderous Mother Nature and her evil killer plants that release a mysterious neurotoxin into the atmosphere, causing anyone who is exposed to it to commit suicide.
However, watching The Happening as a supernatural thriller is a big, big mistake.
You MUST watch this wannabe B Movie as the incomparable work of comic genius that it is. When viewed as an unintentionally funny and farcical film, The Happening is a piece of comedy gold and, in reality, the aforementioned mysterious neurotoxin released into the atmosphere by the evil plants actually causes anyone who is exposed to it to act very, very badly.
A super silly piece of cinema, populated with woeful, wooden (pun-intended) performances, The Happening is terrifically and terrifyingly topped off by Marky Mark Wahlberg’s woeful portrayal as our plant-negotiating protaganist.
Here he is in one of the film’s most ridiculously ricdiculous scenes, most certainly a JOE favourite…
Little Shop Of Horrors (1986)
“Feeeed meeeeeeeeeee!”
Say hello to Audrey II – an evil flytrap-like extraterrestrial plant with plans to take over the world. This potty-mouthed potted-plant is the real reason JOE isn’t as avid a gardener as our Granny would like us to be – it had nothing to do with getting our good trousers dirty Granny, we’re sorry we lied.
Based on the off-Broadway musical comedy of the same name, Little Shop Of Horrors tells the story of Seymour (Rick Moranis), a geeky florist shop worker who happens to raise a vicious plant that has a taste for human blood – think Hannibulb Lecter and you’ve got the right idea.
Packed with charming performances, tremendous tunes and directed by none other than Frank ‘Yoda, I am’ Oz, Little Shop Of Horrors is a crackin’ comedy cult classic.
Check out Steve Martin hamming it up as Orin Scrivello, the all-singing, all-dancing sadistic dentist from your musical nightmares:
Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes (1978)
It doesn’t get much more terrifying than giant killer tomatoes, or “tomatoes,” as our Yankee cousins like to call them.
Like The Happening, Attack Of The Killer tomatoes was bombarded with abuse by the critics when it was first released but has since gone on to acheive cult status, no doubt due to the fact that it is really, really, really bad – but in a really, really, really good kind of way.
There’s not much in the way of a plot but the film essentially involves tomatoes becoming sentient by unknown means and revolting against humanity. Genius.
The film spawned a number of sh*tty sequels, the most notable of which, Return Of the Killer Tomatoes, starred a certain Mr George Clooney…
Take a look at the original film’s fantastic trailer below, complete with its very own awful theme tune…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebfLWAB8bY4
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