Despiser, o Fylakas tis Kolasis [Greek]
Les Âmes Damnées [French]
Tagline(s):
Fear for Your Soul
Nomination Year: 2026
SYNOPSIS:
Artist Gordon Hague is having a Bad Day. I mean a REALLY Bad Day. He just got fired. His hot wife is leaving him. Oh, and he just DIED in a car accident.
That's right. Dead. And he goes straight to...Heaven? No, that would be a GOOD day. Hell? Nope, not that bad. He goes to Purgatory, where he meets a group of ragtag freedom fighters that are fighting against the evil overlords of the realm -- The Despiser and his chief minion, the Shadow Man.
Weird, huh? It gets MUCH weirder. It turns out Gordon has the unique ability to exit Purgatory back to the real world and vice-versa, simply (?) by dying in either realm. The Despiser craves that power to escape and take over/destroy the Real World! So the chase is on in both dimensions.
Oh...and did I mention that the "Despiser" is an alien who crash-landed in Purgatory eons ago and is amassing all the nuclear warheads (that's right -- nukes in Purgatory) in a bid to create an explosion so massive it punches a hole into our reality?
Riiiiiight...
So Gordon's wife dies and now he has to save her, his Purgatorial friends, and two worlds! Quite a tall order for a guy who's been a nothing loser all his life.
Also, the entire film is chock-full (like nearly every scene) with incredibly crappy CGI. I mean horrible, awful CGI, constantly used. Think Spy Kids in style, but so, so much worse. In fact, this makes Shark Boy and Lava Girl look like Avatar.
Bryan "Allen Smithee" Cassidy
Smithee Award Nominations
Most Ludicrous Premise
Recruited for the Dude
Nimbus explains that he and his crew (now including Gordon) are all people of strong character who sacrificed themselves for others and are now here in Purgatory to destroy the Despiser for...The Dude!
Worst Special Effect
God Had Nothing To Do with This
The good guys are being chased by Shadowman and his minions in cars on a bridge. Nimbus says, "Don't worry, son! God is on our side!" Shadowman shoots a rocket-bullet (or whatever) from his car that clearly blows up in front of BOTH hero vehicles. Yet later, we see Jake and Fumie look back as if it fell between them? Abysmal CGI throughout.
Stupidest-Looking Monster
Little Critter, Big Critter, Big Crater
Ow! Horrible FX, Horrible SLMs!
"Cutting Butter With A Chainsaw"
Setting Off Nukes with a Grenade and Blowing Up Purgatory
The Despiser has Maggie! It holds all the cards! But Gordon has an ace up his sleeve...or rather, a grenade. He tosses it. It somehow makes it to the courtyard below, where the Despiser (stupidly) keeps all his nukes. BOOOOOOOOOOMMMM! Bad guy killed, souls freed.
"WHAT?!"
The Movie Does a Little Trolling
First off, the pictures in his sketchbook MOVE. Why?? He doesn't bat an eye. Okay, maybe it's his imagination. But then...the Troll doll screeches "You're gonna die! You're gonna die!" I think we have a new Smithee gesture on par with the Birdemic Wings and the Walking Finger.
Worst Picture
She Died of CGI
A minion from Purgatory poses as a suicide jumper to lure Gordon's wife Maggie and draw out Gordon. He pulls her to her death...by rotten CGI.
A Whole Bunch of Nonsense
The Despiser revealed! He kills Jake, gets his eye shot out by Gordon, then reveals he has Maggie. All with Truly HORRIBLE CGI FX.
Not sure if was Matt Groenig's
inspiration
for Philip J. Fry...but anyhow, directed
the Malice franchise of
movies as well as the equally Bad
Ghost Planet and
Echoes of Dread.
Acts like a flat-broke man's Bryan
Cranston...or at least tries to. Was Poe
in The Death of Poe; the
title characters in Dr. Jekyll and
Mr. Hyde (2002); and Professor
Moriarty in The Return of Sherlock
Holmes (2016). Apparently the guy behind
Redfield Arts Audio, which does audio
dramatizations.
Stupidest-Looking Monster
Philip J. Cook
Mark Redfield
Doug Brown
Gage Sheridan
