The Final Sacrifice (1990)

Captivating movie !

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

First thing I have to say - this was not a movie made for peanuts; this was made for the kind of budget that budget movies spend on peanuts.So we can cut it a little slack on the production and casting. The plot, however, has far too many coincidences to take seriously. And Mike Pipper's bit of Basil Exposition always reminds me of 'Blazing Saddles' and the "authentic frontier gibberish" line.Thank God for Mystery Science Theater 3000, then! They take a potboiler destined for total oblivion and somehow give it greatness and a strangely lovable afterlife.Zap Rowsdower is the kind of hero that those of us without six-pack stomachs, killer cheekbones and effortlessly tousled-looking hair can aspire to be.

Damn! This is one strange pony to talk about. Let me just take a chronological repetition of what bothers me with the plot. Shall we? Why do the Ziox gang have such an inconvenient dress-code? Isn't it rather obvious you're a no-good with a black pillow-case on your head, and wouldn't you be freezing you nipples of if you had to wear nothing but a tank-top all year? Maybe it's only the ones in command like Satoris who can wear a coat and go un-masked? When Troy search the casket in the attic and find the badly drawn demons and map, what was he really looking for in the first place? What did he believe could explain his fathers dead? How do Satoris and his gang know Troy found the map, how do they know how to find him, and why do they start wrecking his home when they obviously know their way around fine without the map? When a trucker probably knows "a little of everything", it's still rather unusual that Troy doesn't raise a single suspicious question when Zap explains all about prehistoric cultures of Canada! When the Ziox capture Zap in their secret lair, why do they pass up the chance to snatch Troy too and save all later trouble?When Zap fight his way through the hordes of bad-guys who all look alike, why do he never figure out to dress up in one of them's tank-top and pillow case and hide among them till the right moment? It is his trucker-pride that stands in the way?How do the hermit Mike know so much about the past of people he never met? And where do he stock his horse?Why are Satoris so eager to get his hands on Troy when it seems like everyone could do for "the final sacrifice"? And what happens when the lost city finally raises? Is it a spaceship or what?And I think I just could go on. About the grabling hook, Troy's aunt who never are heard of again and the cheesy papier-mache idols. How Troy is a creepy, whiny tard, and our hero Zap Rowsdower is an alcoholic slob with a name that's even weirder than the directors. Guess he just worked after and got carried away by the thumb-rule that whenever someone or something has to sound cool or mysterious, it has to be named something with Z or X. You could imagine that if Troy instead had been a pretty, young woman, and Zap had been a more attractive Kurt Russel-like type, it would all be a little easier to swallow. But then would we talk about it to this day? Recently an interview with the actor playing Zap was unleashed on Youtube, where he explains how it was a learn-by-doing project for everyone involved and his thoughts about the character he played. While it certainly didn't made the movie any better, it did help me admire the effort of getting it done. Bless you Mr. Rowsdower!

Oh dear, oh dear…So, the story of Ziox... maybe: A long time ago, an advanced civilization known as "Ziox" prospered. The people started worshiping an evil idol, so the regular god/gods were angered and punished them through forces of nature, causing their main city (or ONLY city, as it were) to be swallowed by the earth. The survivors continued to live alongside humans and… and by this point I'm just guessing.Here's the story of the movie: Seven years ago a guy was shot by a cult of supposedly, maybe Ziox-descendants. What we know for sure, is that the cult consists of ski mask guys in tank tops, that they're led by the black-clad Satoris, and that I start laughing every time I see him.In present time, the shot guy's skinny, teenage son Troy for the first time rummages through his dad's old stuff, and manages to find a folder marked "ZIOX" in 4 inch letters. It's filled with what looks like kids' drawings, and according to dad's notes, one of them is a one-of-a-kind map leading to the sunken city.Cut scene to anonymous hobo trying to start his truck in some dusty place. It won't start, and we never get to see hobo's face, so this scene is only in the movie to establish that the truck's crap, I guess?In the meantime, and also for the first time in seven years, the cult manages to find out where the guy they shot lived, and comes looking for the "map". Luckily, Troy has a bike (no, not a motorcycle, a regular ten-speed bike), so he outruns both the cult and their car, and ends up in the back up the crappy truck. We now get to see hobo's face for the first time, AND... he's a flabby, mustasched drunk. As if this wasn't bad enough, he's named Zap Rowsdower. (Is there anything that says "hero" like a fat drunk called Zap Rowsdower?)By sheer coincidence, Zap is one of the two humans in the world, or at least Canada, who know about the cult, so they talk a bit about it. The crappy truck breaks down somewhere, and what do you know – when Troy goes to get water, he finds stones that look like they're marked on the map. This is just a few minutes walk off the main road, and after a few minutes more, he (and Zap, who successfully ran after him without getting a heart-attack) finds a tunnel. Down it, there's some remnants of the Ziox civilization (?), and what I mean to say by that, is: Holy crap, those are cheap sets! Ugly, ugly papier maché. But expert Zap concludes that the tunnel "must have been dug hundreds of years ago". Guess that's the reason why everything's so untouched by time and nature down there. Anyway, while they're into finding stuff, they find a cabin belonging to Yosemite Sam's older brother. He greets them with a shotgun, but no worries: When Zap for the first and only time calls Troy "McGreggor" instead of "Troy",by another sheer coincidence, Yosemite turns out to be the OTHER of the only two humans who know about the cult - as well as Troy's dead dad's old friend. Now that all is well, the shotgun is put away, and Yosemite mutters out the history of Ziox, and how Troy's dad revealed the place of it and whatever. Oh yeah, by now we know that Zap was one of the cult, since he's a "half-blood" – which means Ziox people weren't human, or perhaps just not Canadian. Not sure what makes up the other half. Troy takes out the map and by drawing four lines on it (of which two are unnecessary), Yosemite marks out "the exact location of the city" - on a map that's never even been near according to scale. Oh, well...Next time we meet Satoris, he's taken Troy to the place of the evil idol – which can probably be seen from the road, by the way. Rumour has it that a human sacrifice will bring an undead, invincible army, which Satoris wants to get in order to take over the world. Very original... Zap comes too, without doing any actual searching for the place, so I guess the map really WAS exact. He finds a grappling hook just lying around and tries fighting Satoris. He's crap at it, but it doesn't matter since Troy shoots Satoris in the back with a shotgun, that was also just lying around. Satoris bursts into flame and the idol falls down for some reason, and the sunken town magically shows up again - all clean! The ski mask guys go to the town and Troy and Zap ride into the sunset in the crappy truck, after a heartfelt embrace.

OK, before I talk about the movie, don't go watch it expecting something... good. You'll be severely disappointed. DO watch it as a comedy, not a good comedy like Blazing Saddles or any Montey Python movie, but a movie not trying to be a comedy, but sadly is, like the Evil Dead series or really any other "B" rated horror movie.So some scrawny thespian lost his dad to a bunch of Canadian high school football players wearing masks, oh so long ago, who can't even drive fast enough to knock this kid off a bike, nor have a good enough aim with a gun to shoot at a truck going... 20 miles per hour. Scrawny boy hooks up with a mullet wielding drunk named Zap Rowsdower... doesn't this sound great so far? With a name like Rowsdower, know on will even care about the plot, right? It gets better! Being chased by Satoris, a dubbed half albino villain, Scrawny thespian and cynical drunkard adventure through southern Alberta... the mystical location of an ancient, and apparently highly cultured and advanced race ever to be known to earth.This is a horrible attempt at a weak D&D plot set in "Hockey Hair" time with all hero's abilities set to 0. Please don't watch this movie without the MST3K professionals doing their work. 9/10 MST3K, 2/10 sober...