There could be much to love about a movie like this, it's typical Jim Wynorski fare, but it's merits are solely up to the viewer.Who is Jim Wynorski you might ask? He directed such gems as Sorority House Massacre II, Deathstalker II, Dinosaur Island, Cheerleader Massacre, Busty Cops, and Busty Cops Go Hawaiian. You get the picture. I went on a "bad movie diet" a while ago, and you might think that means I avoided bad movies, you'd be wrong. It was pretty much nothing but B-movies, Z-movies, and flat out bad movies. So, Wynorski's name came up a bit. I think you have to have a personal affinity for cheesy and/or bad movies to find any merit in ones like this. I'm pretty sure I do. Yet I also have a few distractions on hand in case the movie drags or gets boring. (i.e. YouTube, Facebook, the internet in general)
Hard to Die was billed on the cover as the "Female Die Hard!" and it shows a chick with an assault rifle, in naught but her undergarments. Right away this tells me two things about the movie, it will have scantily clad women and guns. I'm totally cool with that. Sign me up. However this is where things go south, and I say that not with a disappointed frown, but a smile as I'm trying to refrain from laughing. The movie is about a bunch of women on a work release or something, looking for work I guess? They find themselves having to clean up a building or something... Now, bear with me. I may be confusing Hard to Die with several other movies.
You might ask, "Several?" and yes. Several. A funny thing about these movies, including (but not limited to...) Sorority House Massacre II, and Slumber Party Massacre, is that they all reuse footage. From the same movie apparently. I believe it's Slumber Party Massacre actually. Not ONLY is the footage used as flashback/backstory material, the entire context is changed in each movie. They have no connection and no real canon to speak of, yet ALSO a main actor from Slumber Party Massacre, makes an appearance in all of these other movies! Playing an identical character each time! Whether this was sheer laziness, or an in joke, or what... I don't know. But in retrospect, it's friggin hilarious.
So yeah, Hard to Die is no exception to the reusing of that scene from Slumber Party', and as a result you can tell this is not going to be an action movie. The comparison to Die Hard is amazingly puzzling. (to say nothing of insulting) The only thing they have in common is humans, being called a movie, and one could stretch a bit and say they both take place in high rise buildings. That's it. The antagonist in the movie is actually a pissed off homicidal spirit who can possess people. The twist is that the bad guy is not who you think it is until the end. Which I can't help but spoil later on in this review.
Meanwhile though, the movie makes the stupidest excuses to get the girls into their bras and panties and nothing else. So while on the job, they get stranded in this building somehow, and because their bored and they feel entitled or whatever, they decide to open some boxes of lingerie and try it on. Haha, sorry, what? Lemme just go try on some underwear that doesn't belong to me in front of a bunch of other people who I've only known for a couple hours because that's completely normal right? OF COURSE! Oh and there's a shower scene before they try on the lingerie. Cool beans?
One girl grabs her boob, and it squeaks. Yes, like a cartoon... rubber ducky... honk honk, squeak. That is the maturity level of the movie. Or if you'd prefer, stupidity level. Whichever works for you.
Then the movie has them running up and down hallways and looking for stuff or something, which is all stupid because... none of this is sexy in the slightest, or even MILDLY creepy. Something which Slumber Party Massacre was, very creepy. The lingerie isn't sexy, it looks tacky and ill-fitting. The girls aren't really all that hot. It's kinda a game of... which one is the least bad looking. I kid, somewhat. They're not bad looking, but if you're going to have a bunch of ladies take their clothes off and run around in their panties for 80-90 minutes, at least do us the genre-necessary courtesy of having hot women do this.
There are hundreds upon hundreds of shitty B-movies that have no shortage of beautiful women, baring all for the camera. It's not impossible. So, again, while these girls aren't bad looking, they're just average. Maybe one or two is really cute. But alas. Then I think there's like... only one gun in the whole movie, until the cops show up in the final 15 seconds. So, action is a bust too. Mostly the movie is full of these girls getting murdered by whoever is possessed by the spirit.
Lets talk about the ending though, spoilers galore by the way. The cops show up to rescue the last two girls, when the big creepy guy shows up who's been chasing them the whole time (same dude who appears in all these movies) only the movie pulls a total Shayamalan on us and reveals, he's just trying to save them, and the spirit actually possessed one of the two girls! Dun dun DUNNN. The possessed girl starts speaking in a deep "scary" voice, which sounds retarded and she has a "climatic" showdown with the creepy fat janitor dude who the other girls all but tortured thinking he was the villain.
Hahahaha. This is seriously the end of the movie. The fat creepy janitor fights the possessed chick, channeling the voice of a guy, who's voice has actually been deepened to sound creepy. It's so mercilessly stupid and weird and random. This is where I broke, and I lost it. I died with laughter, I rolled around on my couch, laughing. I'm not quite sure if I was hopelessly laughing like a depressed madman at the 90 minutes
of my life I'll never get back, or laughing because the stupidity of this movie finally K.O.'d my funny bone. I'm convinced nobody ever meant for this movie to be serious, and that's okay, because the laugh I had at the end was worth it. It was worth all of it. Maybe not the weird pedo hand-holding as they wheel the creepy fat janitor and the surviving girl away on stretchers side by side, with the fade to black closing in with a heart shaped cut-out over their hands... maybe it wasn't worth that... but it was worth everything else!
As a footnote, I should explain my history with this movie by the way. On my bad movie diet, I had totally sunk my teeth into the other "Massacre" movies, but couldn't find a copy of this one. As my bad movie binge continued on and on, I became more determined to find this movie. It eluded me... for a whole year. Maybe more. I found so many other obscure and retarded movies that no human should have ever wasted their time on... (and they did) but I could not find this. I was convinced that it was the holy grail of bad movies. Eventually a friend got me access to an invite only site that specializes in shitty movies like this, and I found it. So, Hard to Die earned a permanent place in my folder of B-movies, even though I may never watch it again...
...alone, that is.
Cue the creepy smile, eerie theme music, and the cliche fade to black. Roll credits.
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