I have 498 movies in my Netflix Instant queue. I tend to watch one thing for every five that I add, but now my library is close to being full and I have to make room. So, every Monday I’m going to pick a random movie out of my queue and review the shit out of it. But (like Jesus), I’m also thinking of you and your unwieldy queue and all the movies in it you want to watch but no longer have the time to now that you’ve become so awesome and popular. Let me know what has been gathering digital dust in your Netflix Instant library and I’ll watch that, too. One Monday for you and the next for me and so on. Let’s get to it.

What’s the movie? Visiting Hours (1982)

What’s it rated? Rated R for sweaty Michael Ironside, a pointless William Shatner and Linda Purl going full retard.

Did people make it? Written by Brian Taggert. Directed by Jean-Claude Lord. Acted by Michael Ironside, Lee Grant, Linda Purl and William Shatner.

What’s it like in one sentence? Boring as fuck.

Why did you watch it? Well, last week was your pick and Seti threw down Tears of the Black Tiger. I got about 15 minutes into it and something just felt off, so I looked it up on Netflix and apparently the version they have is the Miramax edit of the film, which runs 20 minutes shorter than the original and has a different ending. That just seemed shitty to me, so I picked something deep in the bowels of my queue for fun, only it wasn’t.

What’s it about in one paragraph? Michael “Fucking” Ironside plays, I shit you not, Colt Hawker, a super duper batshit crazy misogynist serial killer. He hears Lee Grant (playing Deborah Ballin, a TV journalist) talking about a case where a woman put her husband in a coma while possibly protecting herself from him. She feels that the woman shouldn’t be sent to prison and Colt Hawker doesn’t agree with that, so he breaks into her house and stabs her a little, but escapes before killing her. The entire rest of the movie is Colt Hawker making attempts on her life while she’s in the hospital “recuperating”.

"I...drink...your milkshake."

Play or remove from my queue? I think you can safely remove this one after watching the first “horror” scene. When Lee Grant comes home from work after making her controversial stance on releasing the woman who injured her husband, Colt Hawker is waiting for her, shirtless and greasy, wearing a bunch of her jewelry on his face and neck. He looks like Carmen Miranda mixed with Michael Ironside. Then he changes his clothes back to a grey shirt, jeans and cowboy boots and then finishes stalking her throughout the house. She hides in a dumbwaiter and starts to lower herself down to the bottom floor, but Colt Hawker slowly starts pulling the dumbwaiter back up to where he’s waiting with his favorite knife. It’s a stupid crazy sequence that made me think I had a truly insane cult classic to look forward to, but instead it became glacially paced and horrible. I think it might be time for some bullet points.

  • Okay, I get it, Nurse Linda Purl. You get a phone call from the killer and it sounds like he’s at your house with your kids, you’re gonna want to get home as soon as possible. But you’re in a hospital filled with police officers and you’re a 110 lb. nurse with no weapon. Take 15 seconds to use your words and get some dudes with guns to go with you. All you’re doing is putting your kids in worse danger by being useless to them. And just to prove I’m not being a misogynist, let me tell you what happens next. She runs home with no help and Colt Hawker fucking stabs her and she spends the rest of the movie in surgery. She’s one of the leads before that happens. Awful.
  • If you ever, ever put Michael Ironside and William Shatner in a movie together and they don’t fight to the death on top of battle ostriches with laser guns that fire red computer graphics at each other’s sweat face, then we’re through, you and I.
  • Seriously, William Shatner is in this film for a total of 4 minutes and he doesn’t take his shirt off or say something your racist grandpa would. All he does is catch Lee Grant when she faints at the end. And he eats her milkshake. Prick.
  • Colt Hawker makes three separate attempts on Lee Grant while she’s at the hospital and he escapes the hospital completely two of those times. Each time he murders at least one person and gets the entire hospital put on lockdown. There’s at least 30 cops in the hospital and they don’t ever catch him, in fact, they never even see him. Maybe if you’re the police chief, you should change your fucking tactics or stop recruiting cops from hospice.
  • Have your killer make some sort of sense. Judging from the flashbacks, Colt Hawker (I’m not going to stop writing it, so fuck off) hates women because his mother threw boiling water into his father’s face while he was beating her. Huh? Colt Hawker also takes a skanky type gal home and beats her up and cuts her clothes off with a knife…and then lets her go. He’s a serial killer. Who kills women. But he lets one go for absolutely no reason. She seemed like a nice person and I wasn’t rooting for her death, but some consistency would be nice. He’s also really bad at being a serial killer. He’s more like an occasional stabber.
  • Colt Hawker wears a pleather vest sometimes.

There’s so much more wrong with this film that I didn’t even go into, but now I’m feeling like an abusive spouse, so I’ll stop while the film still loves me and knows I love it back. I just get angry with it sometimes.

"Iz my leg."

Do you have a favorite line? No. No I don’t.

Do you have an interesting fun-fact? The actress that played the skanky chick that Colt Hawker terrorizes is Lenore Zann, who did the voice of Rogue on the X-Men cartoon for years. Good for her.

What does Netflix say I’d like if I like this? The Burning (been in my queue awhile), Fatal Attraction (I’ve never seen this. Shhhh.), Extremities (I did this play years ago), 3:15 (an ’80’s Adam Baldwin movie? I want it in me) and Jack’s Back (eh.).

What does Jared say I’d like if I like this? If you like this, then Halloween 2 will blow your fucking mind.

What is Netflix’s best guess for Jared? 2.6

What is Jared’s best guess for Jared? 1.0 (for Colt Hawker in drag at the beginning)

Can you link to the movie? Sure!

Any last thoughts? If you want an hour of people creeping around a hospital, this film is for you!

Did you watch anything else this week? Sound of My Voice, which was excellent and flawed.

Any spoilerish thoughts about last week’s film, Pontypool?  This is a really fun movie, but it seems to lose all tension once Dr. Exposition shows up. Since he doesn’t end up telling them anything they wouldn’t have figured out on their own, I wish the film stayed with just the three radio station employees and the haunting voice of Ken Loney. The after the credits scene is wonderful, and I like the theory that it’s a new reality created through the change of language. I really, really want to see that sequel now.

Next Week? Rum Diary, Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie or whatever you guys are itching for.

If vests could rape.