By Geno McGahee
What is worse than a Polonia Brothers movie that is trying to be a horror film? A Polonia Brothers movie that is trying to be a comedy. I suffered through the 2003 Polonia Brothers’s movie “HELLSPAWN” and I really wanted to like it. I love micro-budget horror films, but there are some people that cannot and offend the art of filmmaking and the Polonia Brothers are the ideal example of this. AMONG US deals with one of my favorite topics. A film that concerns the mighty Sasquatch has my vote almost immediately…unless they really really screw it up. Written by John Oak Dalton and John Polonia, we have what may be the most painful thing ever to be put onto film. I think I’m going to give up my quest to find a watchable Polonia Brothers movie.
We begin with some guy talking to himself as he drives and we see this a lot of indie film. They feel the need to fill empty space with dialogue and it makes it feel less than genuine immediately. The guy runs to a bathroom and starts taking a dump as Bigfoot comes out of the other stall and kills him. We then transition to a girl taking a shower played by Casey Kauffman and I was not surprised that she did not get naked for this film. They did that drop the towel thing that has been done six trillion times. I’m not asking for nudity in this film. Then again, I am, because I needed something to stop me from wanting to kill myself. Thankfully though, Kauffman did not get naked. Getting naked in a film can hurt a career. Getting naked in a Polonia Brothers film will ruin your life, I’m sure.
We learn that these scenes are out of movies that filmmaker, Billy D’Amato (Robert Dennis), had made and he starts talking about his film career. Insomniacs of the world, I think I found your cure. D’Amato talks about his Sasquatch films that put the beast in Rome as a gladiator and at a disco. These are sad attempts to be funny. It is so painful. Ray Steele (John Polonia) is the director of photography and talks about his experiences with D’Amato in a very monotone voice and making this film that much more difficult to sit through.
We are introduced to Bigfoot expert, Wayne (Jon McBride), and he tried really hard to be funny. He wears funny glasses and has a silly haircut. Oh, what laughs I had. OK, I’m lying. This character was, by far, the most annoying in the film. McBride plays the role as a character that he thought would be amusing because he talked weird and looked strange, but nobody that produced this film had the ability to be funny and were unable to put a product on the screen that was remotely amusing.
Wayne, D’Amato, Steele and Jennifer (Hunter Austin) head out to make another production and learn that Bigfoot may be real, but you never see it, and that’s a good thing. The times that you do see a Sasquatch, it’s the cheapest costume on the market. This film was relying on schlock to get it over, but it’s so terrible and unfunny that you want to puke in your shoes after watching five minutes of it.
What’s odd about this film is that it does border on pretentious. A group of people without any talent whatsoever doing commentary about real films was a big slap in the face to legit filmmakers out there. I never want to discourage anyone from creating art, but the Polonia Brothers should have been stopped after their first movie. I know that John Polonia has passed away at a young age and that is a shame, and I should not speak ill of the dead, but filmmaking was not something that he or his group did well at all.
Another bitch about this film is that the cover art made it look like a Bigfoot horror movie. They are selling this as a horror entry and it is a wannabe comedy. AMONG US is an insult to Bigfoot, to film, to life, to women, to horror and to comedy. I am going to give up my quest to find a good Polonia Brothers movie. If this and HELLSPAWN is what they can do, I can’t imagine a watchable production coming out of their studio. DO NOT WATCH THIS ONE.
Rating: 0/10 – A disgrace
