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I SOLD MY SOUL–FOR AN I-POD

By Felix Vasquez Jr. | August 21, 2006

The movies on the Sci-Fi channel suck, everyone knows that.

From sea to shining sea, it’s become common knowledge these days that about eighty percent of what’s shown on the Sci Fi Channel is likely to be utterly unwatchable. And I refer to the films only.

Their showings of films rely on formulas of a consistent routine of giant monsters, killer bugs, undersea creatures, faux-action features, superheroes, and bargain basement fantasy.

The Sci-Fi Channel that once showed “Land of the Giants”, and “Lost in Space” has now dumbed itself down and does nothing but show repeats of mediocre shows, marathons of classic shows, a really crappy superhero reality show, and, for some reason ECW Wrestling.

But the joy is in the Sci-Fi original movies.

In the last year I’ve seen so much crap on that channel it’s not even funny. There was a movie about a girl who finds out she’s Lilith and becomes a superhero, a giant mammoth wreaking havoc, a woman who finds out she has powers courtesy of a government accident, a horrible sequel to “The Crow”, a rip-off with a brother and sister witch fighting evil, and a lot of really bad films from Asylum including “Beast of Bray Road”. And that’s just scratching the surface.

During one of their really bad movies called “Slayer”, which involved Casper Van Dien leading a team of soldiers into the jungle to fight off a group of karate fighting vampires, there appeared a commercial about a sweepstakes where you have to name their new crappy TV movie, and you get to win an Ipod!

So, my interest grew. Firstly, because in spite of what I or others think, the Sci-Fi movies shockingly acquire an assload of ratings, thus they continue showing them, so I went to the site, and gave three suggestions. After reading the plot description:

“Thirty years ago, Ray Reiter watched in horror as a giant squid attacked and killed his parents. The creature escaped, but not before young Ray destroyed one of its eyes. When the one-eyed beast re-emerges, attacking a crew of a treasure hunting expedition, Ray joins the team, in hopes of exacting his revenge.”

I knew instantly that they’d go for the cliche title, so I entered the contest, and offered three suggestions:
Death Torrent
Blue Doom
Terror Coast

Not bad. Cheesy, corny, and just up their alley. I mean this is the channel that plays the “Shark Attack” and “Scarecrow” series, I knew these action-esque names would definitely tickle their fancy. I mean there was Deedee Pfeiffer in the semi-action semi-science fiction lemon “Blue Demon”.

The offering for winning was an I-Pod. Well, I didn’t want the I-Pod, but I did. More clearly, I wanted the I-Pod since the retail value was at 399 bucks. So my plan was to win, and then sell it off on Ebay, to earn the money. Hey, I’m poor, what do I care about playing fair?

Anyway, three months later, and you can hang your head low in knowing that Sci-Fi didn’t pick my titles. Yes, it’s a sad occasion indeed. They named it “Kraken: Tentacles of the Deep”. What the f**k “Kraken” is, I don’t know, but I’m sad “Death Torrent” wasn’t chosen. I surely would have demanded royalties.

I kid. Anyway, so now I’ll have look for other sources of extra income since my brief foray into selling overpriced, overhyped, crappy electronics didn’t work. I wonder how much drug traffickers make, ballpark.

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  1. Felix Vasquez Jr. says:

    I’m currently engrossed in “Eureka” on Sci-Fi, but their bad movies are quite a sight to behold.

  2. Gigi says:

    I have never seen any of their movies, but “Ghosthunters” is the shiznit.

    I am entering all kinds of candy bar wrapper contests lately, don’t feel bad. Someone has to win, right?

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