Reviewed by

Christopher Armstead

Just the other day I was sitting around wondering ‘Where in the Hell is Kevin Dobson’. Seriously. I had just watched some movie with Brian Austin Greene in it who was a child actor on Knots Landing back in the day, one of my favorite shows as a teenager, which got me curious about what K-Dob has been up too lately. Crocker baby. You kids wouldn’t know nothing about that. It certainly warms my heart to see that sixty six year old actor is still alive and working steady… though I gotta say that this here movie ‘Portal’ did blow a slight breeze on that warmth as this movie was not one the brightest moments on the career of Detective Bobby Crocker.

Hooke (Chris Conrad) and Gibbs (Alexander Martin) are a couple of musicians driving down the worlds foggiest street heading towards a gig when they get run off the road by some truck. Considering their eyes have grown heavy and their sights have grown dim they need somewhere to stop somewhere for the night. Good thing they saw that shimmering light in the distance which is the local motel managed by one Mr. Benedict who seems rather insistent that our dudes sign the guest book, and now its off for a night of rest so they can proceed on the next day to their destination.

Problem is these cats must’ve been super duper tired because they sleep the whole day through and miss their gig. Besides, the fog still hasn’t lifted. Now they just decide to have some dinner with the other people staying at the motel and deal with Mr. Benedict and his rather odd collection of motel staffers.

Our man Hooke knows that something’s not right, like he’s done all this before. He knows this for a fact when the next morning he’s run off the road again by the same damn truck, having dinner with the same damn people and having the same lame ass conversation with those people. Why he can remember certain stuff and no one else can, well that’s complicated but the more he remembers the more screwed up the situation becomes. Why are these people walking around in hoods chanting stuff? Why

are women strapped to upside down crosses and getting raped? Why are women shooting bloody worms out of their vaginas? Why are pregnant women trapped in chicken wire eating rotten meat? Why is that sister over there blowing that white guy with the heavy eye shadow? I don’t know the answer to these or more of the questions that will posed in this flick but I do one thing… can you say Satan?

So I’ve been staring at my computer screen for like a half an hour trying to find a way to put a positive spin on this thing because I’m sure the people who made this movie are very nice folks and surely getting together a couple hundred bucks, borrowing a camera and a light bulb from somebody and getting K-Dob to come out of retirement requires some effort but I can’t spin this one brother. Portal is absolutely, positively, unequivocally terrible. Sure the movie looks a little cheap as it starts out, but we’re not snobs over here at the FCU, however after about a half an hour into the movie and nothing of note has really happened, we were starting to get a little concerned. Eventually when stuff did start to happen, say like the woman with the worm infested cooch, things could’ve been helped mightily with the assistance of a little clarity. Since it’s not completely normal for a woman to shoot bloody worms out her v-jay, I kind of need to know why that’s happening.

I kind of need to know who this evil trinity of Motel 6 employees are. Why does the hand maiden havesuper powers? Who is this woman who oversees the pregnant chicks behind chicken wire, and who also has super powers in addition to being a mistress of illusion? How does one stumble into the portal and how come only a Mercedes Benz army truck can leave the portal? Does the sista with the oral skills have super powers? We ask because it looks like she could’ve used those in this movie. And since she wants to leave the portal why doesn’t she just jump in the back of the truck and leave? I’m down with ‘choose life’ and all, but if you’re impregnated via rape by a dude doing satanic chants and forced to eat rotten meat while kept behind chicken wire by a demoness mistress of illusion, and watching those before you birth deformed devil babies… Even the most virulent pro-lifer would probably agree that this might be the one time that early termination is a truly viable option.

Very few of these questions I found the answers to. Now it’s possible that the answers where there and they simply went over my head, or maybe during one of the times I nodded off during this incredibly boring exercise they were explaining this stuff. If that’s indeed the case I apologize, otherwise if you’re looking to sacrifice ninety minutes of your life, might I suggest a ‘Golden Girls’ triple feature, and don’t be like me and sacrifice that time to this movie ‘Portal’.