DEE SNIDER'S STRANGELAND (1998)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
"Dee Snider's Strangeland" is a laugh riot, there I said it - a laugh riot. It is not scary or thrilling or remotely gut-wrenching to hardcore gore fans or those who admire torture porn (a term I loathe - it should be torture plays). Dee Snider is the former frontman of his band, Twisted Sister, but even he could do better than create such bottom-of-the-barrel junk.Dee Snider is the Internet psycho, Captain Howdy, who lures young men and women to his house through an online chat room and subjects them to body modification and piercings. He doesn't just give a nose ring or tongue ring and call it a day - he sews up his victims' eyelids and mouths and begins piercing to inflict pain. I guess his point is that the body feels pain so you have to learn how to separate the flesh from the spirit, or so I gather. If I want body piercings, I'll go somewhere else.
Linda Cardellini, pre-"Freaks and Geeks," is one of the first victims and she spends the movie mostly naked, mute or occasionally crying or all the above (she also uses a catheter while caged like a wild animal!) There is her police detective of a father (Kevin Gage), who expresses muted rage the way an angry rabbit does. Elizabeth Pena has the thankless role as Cardellini's mother. Robert Englund brings a modicum of energy as an angry mob leader who wants to kill Captain Howdy. If Englund had played Linda's father, this might have been a better film overall. Dee Snider has an imposing presence but he is a mite more chilling when we don't see his tattooed, pierced face.
"Strangeland" segues to a story of how Captain Howdy is reformed and just needs to take his sanity pills to remain civilized in society. Such an intriguing subplot is shuffled for more body piercings and every hook, line and sinker of the "Hellraiser" variety. William Friedkin's "Rampage" had a similar subplot that gave credence to the morality of capital punishment, and had a scarier killer in the casting of Alex McArthur. This movie aims to shock but its too numbing and silly, not to mention laughably acted, to merit any value in the light of the current "Saw" crop.
Dee Snider was rightly pissed that his movie was re-edited into the mess it became. I'd be pissed too.
