Well would you look over there?  Lucy Ewing done had a baby and she’s a full grown woman.  And I do mean Full Grown.  My how time flies.  When I was little boy, and I remember this as if it were yesterday, the season premiere of ‘Dallas’ came on.  The only thing I remember about that show and that episode was actress Charlene Tilton hanging upside down in a barn with and her boobies almost falling out her shirt.  It was certainly the talk of the school among all of us little boys that day and catapulted ‘Dallas’ to ratings dominance for years to come.  This brings us to the little low budget independent horror feature that calls itself ‘Grim Reaper’ starring Charlene Tilton’s baby girl Cherish Lee.

Ms. Lee plays the part of Rachel who is a stripper engaged to her pre-med boyfriend Liam (Benjamin Pitts).  Why they made Rachel a stripper is a bit of a conundrum since she is the kind of stripper who doesn’t take her clothes off.  Thus, you could have made her just about anything.  A fast food worker, a missionary, or a blue vest employee because they too don’t take their clothes off at their jobs either generally speaking.  Admittedly they don’t wear cute angel wings at their jobs, but I’m thinking folks who frequent strip clubs go there to see people get naked and not just to see well built girls in stockings and angel wings.  I think.  So Rachel is out to catch a cab on her way home and gets run down by said cab.  She struggles to her feet and a strange homeless man implores her to ‘stay in the light’ then disappears.  Moments later Rachel wakes up in an emergency room, but the nurse observes she has no pulse or heartbeat.  Well this nurse is up to something because the next thing we know she’s injecting Rachel with some knock out juice, and when she wakes up again she is in a deserted insane asylum run by the demented Dr. Brown (Brent Fidler).  There’s also

five other inhabitants of this exclusive club, all who have cheated death in some way.  It seems that they are there for the sole reason to be hunted by Death himself who is going to punish them for ruining the circle of life.  So in typical horror movie fashion, the Grim Reaper, sickle and all, hunts these youths one by one to get his payment. By this time hero boy Liam has tracked down his hero girl and now is determined to save her from death.  Hopefully by now you’ve stopped reading this and have determined that actually watching ‘Grim Reaper’ is a pain you can do without, since this reviewer has suffered enough for the both us.

Other than the fact that Cherish Lee fills out a pair blue jeans like few women before her ever have, there is truly no justifiable reason for anyone, other a serious glutton for punishment, to watch ‘Grim Reaper’.  I mean them jeans was crying for mercy baby.  Obviously we see the ‘Final Destination’ references in the narrative, and were the movie a straight rip off ‘Final Destination’ it might not have been so lame, but it also had throw in some ‘Friday the 13th’ in there and little bits and pieces from other horror movies lying around on the ground.  Aside from the fact that ‘Grim Reaper’ was so slow, and so dull, which is enough not to watch it, but it was stupid too.  Why is the Grim Reaper hunting these kids?  Well, because they cheated death and since they have cheated death, the reaper is out to reclaim them.  So these folks are gathered in one place, in an under the table deal made with the Reaper by the Evil Dr. Brown, and his evil nurse wife, so the reaper won’t have to go from apartment to apartment and kill them, because the Grim Reaper is a lazy ass.  And then there’s the weird homeless dude, who I guess is an angel of some sort, who tells and the kids to stay in the light so the monster won’t get them.  Well he was lying because the monster seems to exist in the light quite fine thank you.  After seeing how the ‘homeless angel’ was able to ‘help’ our troops, it soon became apparent that he’s just a homeless dude who likes to say ‘stay in the light’.

It goes on and on and on, topped it all off with a crazy ending and even a twist which leads us to thinking there may be a sequel or two (aaack!).  Certainly ‘Grim Reaper’ isn’t the worst concept on the planet, but it was poorly executed and poorly told and framed in suspect performances.  Except for those jeans that Cherish was wearing.  Outstanding!