The Bad Ben Series - Part Four

BAD BEN: EULOGY
(2022)
Dir - Tom Fanslou
Overall: MEH

 

There are some fun moments in the tenth installment to Tom Fanslou's relentless Bad Ben franchise, but it also drags at regular intervals and overstays its welcome.  Some could argue that the entire series has overstayed its welcome by this point, and no one could fault anyone for dropping out before making it this far.  For those who keep checking in every year to see what more goofy, micro-budgeted nonsense Fanslou has conjured up in his ever-expanding narrative, Bad Ben: Eulogy offers another formula detour and an appreciated one following the previous year's paint-by-numbers Bad Bed: Benign.  At the end of that film, Fanslou's schubby paranormal investigator died and went to hell, this episode delivering on its title and serving as a compilation eulogy that cobbles together various footage from past clients of his, all of whom have less than flattering things to say about his ghost/demon/big foot-exorcism methods.  Many of these vignettes are amusing, showcasing just how much of a clueless dope Tom Riley is as he bumbles his way through one supernatural event after the other, usually making things worse for the people who call on him for his assistance.  A podcaster has cobbled together the footage in his attempts to understand Riley's legacy, ultimately leading to a finale that was predictably teased at and leads us right into the same year's Bad Ben: Undead.

 

BAD BEN: UNDEAD
(2022)
Dir - Tom Fanslou
Overall: WOOF

 

Tom Fanslou has never made any claims to be a found footage Orson Welles, but his work here in the eleventh Bad Ben movie seriously raises questions as to his directorial abilities or more to the point, his lack-thereof.  Bad Ben: Undead rides that razor-thin line of a movie that has such major problems that one has to wonder, (or at least hope), that the lone creative voice behind it was in on the joke and merely pulling a con on his audience.  Namely, the pacing is so redundant that it becomes comical long before a segment hits about an hour in that is either one of the funniest elongated gags in film history or one of the biggest laps in judgement on the filmmaker's part.  It is an expository dialog dump for the books, one that manages to shoehorn in presumably every Bad Ben fan, financial backer, or buddy that Fanslou possibly could into a hysterically monotonous name-dropping sequence that goes on for nearly twenty goddamn minutes.  Whether or not Fanslou meant for it to obliterate any narrative momentum is up for debate, but in any even, this moment alone is worth the price of admission, something that puts the whole movie in the "so bad it's good" category.  Elsewhere, Fanslou's Tom Riley comes back to life, (it's a long story), visits a zoo, acts like a crotchety asshole, puts on a purposely amusing and ill-fitting pink shirt at one point, and roams around the woods with two other dipshits while people in, (very), cheap Halloween masks are supposed to be zombies slowly lurching at them.  Fanslou is taking the piss out of himself as much as ever, but how much comedy is here on purpose as opposed to how much is on account of him not knowing what the hell he is doing is the real question.

 

BAD BEN: ALIEN AGENDA
(2023)
Dir - Tom Fanslou
Overall: WOOF

 

Though he does not do it nearly as hilariously as he did in the previous year's abysmal Bad Ben: Undead, Tom Fanslou still egregiously shoehorns in his financial backers in order to balloon up the running time in Bad Ben: Alien Agenda.  An inevitable avenue to cross with these movies was giving them some kind of sci-fi angle since every other genre premise is getting checked off the list, but anyone expecting this to be a trek through the cosmos where Fanslou and his partner in boredom three movies running Scott Tomlinson run away from little green men while filming the evidence will be grossly disappointed.  Instead, Fanslou and Tomlinson arrive back on earth within the first few minutes after being abducted at the end of the previous film, only to just slum around the woods or his Morgan Freedman talking car, (voiced by Red Letter Media's favorite guest Josh Robert Thompson), while frequently cutting away to fans of the series who donated money.  Fanslou is getting more incompetent, lazy, and less funny as he continues to churn these indie franchise installments out, shooting long endless takes as he prattles on with lore, stumbles his lines, and forces Tomlinson to stand or sit there uncomfortably as he tries to act remotely interested.  Whereas the series was originally a clever send up of found footage/haunted house tropes, and Fanslou's average Joe schlubbiness has always been consistently hilariously, he seems to be begrudgingly churning this one out.  Even scrapping the barrel with the same shit different movie routine would be preferable to whatever zero effort agenda he has going on here, the longest and worst of the lot.

The Bad Ben Series - Part Three

BAD BEN: THE HAUNTED HIGHWAY
(2019)
Dir - Tom Fanslou
Overall: MEH
 
The mixed bag trajectory of the nada-budgeted Bad Ben series continues with Bad Ben: The Haunted Highway.  Here, Tom Fanslou takes a much needed new angle by leaving the haunted house on Steelmanville Road, (even though we make a few trips there anyway), and instead follows his on-screen counterpart Tom Riley around in his new job as an Ubber-type driver who has a busy supernatural evening on Halloween night.  The tone is exclusively goofy and for his part as our increasingly aggravated host, Fanslou is hilarious as he exhibits a combination of nonchalant and "Dude what the fuck was that?" befuddlement over every ridiculous thing that keeps happening to him.  This includes taking three different people to his old abode, (one of whom is a vampire), venturing in there like an idiot to find pairs of boots chasing him, hitting a dog with his van that turns into a naked guy because werewolves, dropping a dude off for a presumed fuck date in the middle of the woods and then picking up the woman that he presumably met up with who has his severed head in a bag, running over a clown scarecrow that comes alive, and finally meeting up with two parallel universe versions of himself while trying to get gas.  Any sense of logic is nonexistent and it starts to feel its length after awhile, but Fanslou's comedic chops are in fine form, plus he seems to be having a ball by changing it up for once.
 

BAD BEN: PANDEMIC
(2020)
Dir - Tom Fanslou
Overall: WOOF

 

An hour and forty-eight minutes of Tom Fanslou watching zoom calls and jumping back in his chair going "What the fuck was that?!?" is the gist of his eighth Bad Ben installment Bad Ben: Pandemic.  It becomes clear from the onset that most if not all of the segments were filmed separately and not in the video call format in which they are presented, since Fanslou talks to whoever is on the other line without them answering him or acknowledging his questions or comments.  Judging by the title and because 2020, the premise is that everyone is cooped up in their homes bored and/or going stir crazy, so Fanslou's charming now-paranormal investigator offers his services online to help anyone out there with whatever bumps in the night issues they may be experiencing during the COVID-19 lockdown.  It is a nice idea on paper to get the fans involved while people were quarantined, cobbling a series of their homemade movies together instead of just having Fanslou wander around his own house again.  Our cranky host does have a couple of funny lines and reactions, but the framework here is terrible due to the painful repetitiveness and poor execution of each video call.  All of them feature a combination of some family member not being home for days or acting strange, vague sounds that they go investigate, someone in a cheap grim reaper or clown mask standing in the background, people finding doors closed or items moved, and each one ending with a jump scare, scream, and static freeze frame.  It would work better as a twenty-minute holdover in between proper full-lengths instead of literally being the longest entry thus far.

 

BAD BEN: BENIGN
(2021)
Dir - Tom Fanslou
Overall: MEH

 

Now back to Tom Fanslou wandering around his house talking to himself.  After two installments that at least broke up the form, Bad Ben: Benign returns to basics, too basic in fact since his running-on-empty trajectory becomes more crystalized here.  Fanslou's frustrated yet nonchalant reactions to his never-ending supernatural predicaments are still routinely hilarious, but at this point they are the only redeeming qualities.  The "scary" bits are merely retreads of gags that he has already utilized ad nauseam, his built-up mythology is dead in the water, and his sense of pacing therefor suffers considerably from the "been there, done that" approach.  To be fair, we do get some new and improved special effects like the disembodied head of a former "Druggo Jesus" priest and his sentient severed hand ala-Thing from The Addams Family, but most of the CGI looks charmingly lousy at best.  Fanslou goes up against Pazuzu himself here, (plus a creepy doll and another guy in a Spirit Halloween clown costume), before some more parallel universe Toms eventually show up to get us to the finish line, which has a twist, is one of the silliest so far, and does not deserve spoiling.  The comedic angle was always there with these movies, and this one leans into it with abandon at regular intervals, but the structure is still on rinse and repeat too much to make this something recommendable to the non-converted.

The Bad Ben Series - Part Two

BAD BEN: THE MANDELA EFFECT
(2018)
Dir - Tom Fanslou
Overall: MEH

Four titles in and the Bad Ben series seems to be deliberately taking one step forward and two steps back as Bad Ben: The Mandela Effect ignores everything that was established in the previous and often hysterical Badder Ben.  As the title would suggest, the film has a déjà vu premise where Tom Fanslou seems stuck in a loop, buying the series' haunted house at a sheriff sale, filming himself arriving there, and then freaky stuff starts happening that varies in how similar it is to what happened in the first movie.  The fact that it feels as if you have accidentally pressed "play" on the initial Bad Ben from 2016 is no accident then, but patient viewers will notice the subtle differences which give way to a handful of scenarios that all get Fanslou into the basement so that the screechy demon kid or whatever thing can attack the shit out of him.  The premise works to a point, and Fanslou squeezes some more mileage out of simple found footage gags where our eyes dash around lingering shots waiting for something unnerving to spring into action.  It succeeds in this respect, delivering some chills as well as laughs, especially by the end where even our humble and lone character seems to be picking up on the fact that he has been down this road before.  On that note, the movie does have a scraping the barrel feel to it and proves that you can only make the same film so many times, even if you are making fun of the fact that you are making the same film so many times.

 

THE CRESCENT MOON CLOWN

(2018)

Dir - Tom Fanslou
Overall: WOOF

 

For any viewers that have stuck around with the Bad Ben franchise five entries deep, we are proven with The Crescent Moon Clown that it is best to ignore words like "continuity" and "logic".  Series creator and usual lone actor Tom Fanslou restricts himself to an appearance in the last set piece which is when the movie finally takes the piss out of itself, instead dedicating the rest of it to one unfortunate evening for Jhetta Tionne Anderson to endure.  Playing a college student that has the entire haunted house to herself, Anderson exclusively exhibits "stupid people in horror movies" behavior that is bound to make every audience member yell at the screen.  A sometimes ghost/sometimes flesh and blood person in a Spirit Halloween clown costume lurks around, a sometimes ghost/sometimes flesh and blood person in a Spirit Halloween grim reaper costume also lurks around, lights turn off and on, doors open and close, things make noise, bloody messages get left on the kitchen floor, and Anderson goes about her night saying "Hello?" about a billion times while only seeming mildly concerned.  The pacing is dreadful, (at one point we get an extended sequence where clown man gives us a tour of the entire house on Anderson's cell phone; an entire house that we have explored every nook and cranny of by this point), and the final goofy bit at the end is embarrassing.  Fanslou seems to be having fun churning these out one or two a year, but at this rate, some of them are bound to hit a brick wall.

 

BAD BEN: THE WAY IN
(2019)
Dir - Tom Fanslou
Overall: MEH

 

Making a "Here we go again..." joke when another Bad Ben movie comes out is kind of like complaining about a new Mountain Dew flavor; they are inevitable and many people will try them despite other's eyeball rolls.  Bad Ben: The Way In continues the mostly linear path of the series and serves closest as a direct follow-up to 2017's Badder Ben, which ended with Tom Fanslou/Nigel Bach/Tom Riley's schlubby protagonist getting a second wind in battling malevolent supernatural forces and deciding to launch his own paranormal investigator business.  Tasked by the new owners with ridding his own former house of the now nine official entitles that dwell there, (though there are bound to be some more added before this series wraps up, if it ever does), Fanslou is once again the only guy on screen save for that stupid Spirit Halloween clown that he still keeps lurking around.  Outside of the first movie which worked as both a parody and an unsettling entry into the found footage genre, the rest of the Bad Ben franchise is at its best when it takes the piss out of itself, and thankfully this is the case here.  The most intentionally humorous installment yet, there are laugh-out-loud moments and jump scares aplenty, even if the lore is getting more nonsensical and the shtick is unwavering and bordering on stale.

The Bad Ben Series - Part One

BAD BEN
(2016)
Dir - Tom Fanslou
Overall: GOOD

 
The first in a to-date fourteen deep movie franchise, (plus a short film and a video game), the initial Bad Ben is a hilarious and creepy work in found footage that acts as both a parody of and a legitimate installment in the sub-genre.  Tom Fanslau, (under the pen and screen name of Nigel Bach), shopped his concept around to potential producers with no bites and ergo decided to make it himself, shooting the entire project for only $300 in his own home.  Equipped with a cell phone, security cameras, and a couple of convincing effect shots, the DIY results are commendable in and of themselves.  Thankfully though, Bach's efforts are engrossing besides their practicality.  As the only fellow on screen, he has a shlubby charisma ala Brian Posehn while he endlessly talks to himself, poking fun at the "Why do I feel the need to document my whole life?" trope in such movies.  The subtle yet undeniable comedic angle allows for his character's behavior to be questionable in one sense, but his stubborn and humorous determination to not be driven out of his newly purchased home by unfriendly entities gives the plot just enough plausibility to work.  Best of all though, the simple and familiar set up does not get in the way of some hair-raising spookiness.

 

STEELMANVILLE ROAD

(2017)

Dir - Tom Fanslou

Overall: WOOF

 

While Nigel Bach aka Tom Fanslou is a likeable bloke and his initial Bad Ben film was one of the best micro-micro-budgeted found footage movies perhaps ever made, its follow-up Steelmanville Road, (Bad Ben: Steelmanville Road), is an almost exclusively embarrassing work.  A prequel that leads right up until when the first installment begins, it has a promising opening where a newlywed couple moves into the series' haunted abode to experience a few subtle paranormal episodes, some of which the cameras catches yet the characters do not.  Right from the get-go though, we are given some flimsy reasons for the events to be filmed in the first place, and this becomes more sloppily handled throughout, including close-ups and wide-shots being edited together from the same wall-mounted security cameras.  Yet this is only one of many blunders, since Fanslou regrettably chooses to show physical manifestations of ghosts this time in the form of a backwards talking kid in heavy eye-shadow who looks like he is right out of a nine year-old's YouTube video.  The story is a laughable cliche-fest, made much worse by atrocious acting and a need for Fanslou to explain almost every ambiguously creepy detail from the first movie.  Instead of making for some engrossing mythology, this only messes up what was already a spooky scenario.  In other words, it "fixed" something that was not broken, falling down the stairs in the process.

BADDER BEN

(2017)

Dir - Tom Fanslou

Overall: MEH

 

Three entries in and Tom Fanslou made the wise choice to lean into the more comedic angle that he displayed in his first Bad Ben installment, with Badder Ben, (Badder Ben: The Final Chapter), being more intentionally ridiculous than its awful predecessor Steelmanville Road.  It is still a mixed bag though.  This time we meet some chipper paranormal investigators who have seen the first two movies and decide to find out what all the hullabaloo is about, bringing along Fanslou for the ride who is back to do battle unwillingly against the force or forces that have taken over his would-be flipped home.  The unsettling scare tactics are jettisoned for more of a lampoon-heavy approach where no one on screen seems to be taking things seriously, with many laugh-out-loud results along the way.  Each of the four characters, (particularly Fanslou's who has an understandably hilarious chip on his shoulder now), provide some knowingly goofy moments, plus the franchise's lore becomes officially convoluted, which is appropriate in this more lighthearted context .  Everyone also behaves like an idiot at regular intervals, the plotting is flimsy, and there are some abysmal digital effects that are not played for chuckles, but it is still an enjoyable entry that is introduced as being "for the fans" so in that respect, it is difficult to hate.