One from the to watch pile…
Yoga Hosers (2016)

Film: I kind of feel sorry for Kevin Smith. When his first five View Askewniverse films (Clerks, Malleats, Chasing Amy, Dogma and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back) came out, he was a trail-blazer of modern comedy, and his slacker filled films became pop cultural norms that still influence films today. I loved those films, particularly Dogma, in which Ben Affleck and Matt Damon told such an amazing story about being abandoned, and thought that Smith would be one of the greatest directors of all time in my modest opinion.

But times change, and we get older, me some of us grow, and some of us don’t.

Times change, and comedy takes a popular style, like Smith’s, and evolves, and what happens is the initiator of that comedy sometimes gets left behind, and Smith seems to be in this boat. Those first five movies were so original that I don’t want to criticise Smith as being a one-trick pony, because each of those films were great in different ways, but Clerks 2, even though it retraced steps from the first five View Askewniverse films, lacked something (though Rosario Dawson’s dance sequence to the Jackson five was a bouncy thing of beauty!) Tusk was the next thing I saw of his, and it was just terrible, and I really dig those ‘lost and trapped by a madman’ films, but it just failed on so many counts.

The failure of Smith’s venture in horror comedy continues with this dreadful movie… although I do dig the soundtrack…

Total losers Colleen (Harley Quinn Smith) and Colleen (Lily-Rose Depp) work in a convenience store, Eh-to-Zed owned by one of their fathers, and managed by his girlfriend. They are invited to a high school seniors party one night, but their plans are dashed when they are forced to work.

They invite the boy who invited them to the party to come to the convenience store to party there instead, but they girls find out that he and his friend are devil worshippers possessed by the bratwurst constructed, mini-Nazi clones made by insane Andronicus Arcane (Ralph Garman, who is an amazing impressonist). 

Can they, along with investigator Guy LaPointe (Johnny Depp) stop his nefarious plan?

Who cares, would be a better question. Basically this film is a rehash of Clerks, but for the horror-comedy set, except there’s no horror, and not much comedy. Sorry, there is one piece of horror, after the credits there is a threat that the Colleen’s will return in another film… EEK!

A lot of the so-called comedy is directed at poking fun at the Canadian accent and product which may emulate American ones, which might be funny to an American who hates Canadians, but maybe here is Australia we are too far away from the situation for it to be funny. I can’t help but wonder if the stereotyping done in this film was aimed at another country, that it wouldn’t just come across as culturally insensitive.

I do have to admit, Johnny Depp’s characters ever moving face moles made me snigger.

Smith and Depp are cute kids, but their acting skill aren’t of a high level, but everyone here, even the ones who are normally good actors, seem to have let their talents go on holidays, except for the afore mentioned Ralph Garman, because if he is actually doing those impressions, he’s the king!

The film is full of Smith’s usual suspects Justin Long, Haley Joel Osment, Stan Lee, Jason Mewes and his various friends and relatives. It’s almost like a home movie for the Smith and Depp families, actually, something which Smith even admits in the extras.

Somewhere along the line though, I think when Smith was writing the film he got the idea that he hates anyone criticising his work (who does?) and one of the characters has a dig at those who criticise art. It is a strange bit of the film that feels more like a personal message is thrown into the bratwurst carnage. He has done this before in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, so I think that he’s particularly susceptible to it.

Unfortunately, this film is so bad, it makes the Smith’s boring and stupid Tusk look like The Empire Strikes Back in comparison. What’s worse, is like every other sucker who used to love Smith’s work, I’ll still stupidly shell out money for his next venture as I know that the old Kevin is still somewhere inside him, waiting to produce another gem!

Score: *

Format: This review was performed with the Australian region B bluray, which (thankfully) runs for only 87 minutes of which 7 are the closing credits… 7!!!, which has an immaculate 2.40:1 picture with a spectacular DTD-HD 5.1 audio track.

Score: *****

Extras: Only one extra and it’s a Behind the Scenes which is just a 7 minutes or so look at how the film was made. It’s all ego stroking like the very worst of these types of things.

Score: *

WISIA: Nope, and I’m gonna invent a time machine so I can go back in time and tell myself to not see it once.