Stonehenge Apocalypse. June 2010. A movie about two of my favorite subjects. The supernatural. And the Apocalypse. And it was made for Sifee(The SyFy channel)? And it's even Canadian? Hooyeah! Netflix me up some of that shit now! I love low end, poorly thought out, Sifee Saturday morning extravaganzas! All it needs is some fucking Raptors, and then attach some clamps to my nipples and let's get going!
Basically the premise of this movie is that a genius physicist discovers ley lines that connect Stonehenge with various other ancient monuments. The monuments were built at nexus points around the globe, on these lines of electromagnetic energy. The physicist publishes his theory that these lines are part of an ancient machine built by aliens who were terra-forming the earth sometime in the past, and that the government is covering up the fact that they found a robot head on the moon.
He got laughed at and is now in disgrace and spends his time broadcasting a radio-show that expunges on his theories. Once again, the man believes that Space Aliens used Stonehenge to terraform the world by making super-volcanoes erupt and give life to primitive bacteria. He even had a nice map to prove it. And an ancient mechanical device (reference to a doodad that actually exists) that in no way could have been made before the 1960s.
Well, lucky for the dude that he didn't bring up his Hallow Earth theories. Or his postulations that the earth is really a flat disk that rides through space on the back of a giant turtle.
Maybe the monuments were built by Aliens, or maybe they were created by Humans. The writers were a bit fuzzy on the subject. They implied the latter, but the former is in evidence as well. Really, the alien technology is built into at least two of the monuments. Stonehenge and the one in Maine. That's right, Maine USA. Don't recall a giant ancient pyramid in Maine? That's because it's underground. The Egyptians built it. No, I'm not kidding. It's covered in Egyptian hieroglyphs(but seems to be an amalgamation of different cultures in physical style).
Don't worry. The movie doesn't get too bogged down in the science. It skips right over anything that is remotely scientific. Hey, the area is lousy with electromagnetic energy? That's ok, all of your energy will still work! At least up until that point in the plot where it needs to break down to move the story forward and ratchet up tension!
So, the machine gets re-booted and it vaporizes several tourists at Stonehenge. Even though England doesn't let tourists within 500 feet of Stonehenge. They tend to take souvenirs. Maybe these unfortunate sobs got a... come on man. Do some simple fekkin research. I realize that the very premise of many movies requires a certain amount of suspension of disbelief. But there's no reason to get lazy. Tourists exploring Stonehenge. And their next stop was a visit to meet the Queen no doubt! A pity they missed that.
Well, the rest of the movie is skepticism, and incompetence, and the hero refusing to give up ever. His plucky resolve wins the day and the girl. Yep. Budding romance right there tween the straight laced science chick and the fringe radio-host ex-physicist! They're both attractive too.
An evil cult set on destroying the world using alien technology. Actually, that's rather a good twist. And besides, the world does need to be wiped out and started anew. At least the leader thought ahead enough to bring along an equal number of men and woman. And they did bring some food stores. Though I really am left wondering how well food production would do in the decades after the surface of the Earth was scorched to a desert and all life exterminated. Really, it's the other lifeforms(trees and plants and bacteria) that make the world inhabitable. Destorying all that seems a bad idea, unless you can sleep for a few billion years as the world re-builds itself from single-cell bacteria.
But you can't expect religious fanatics to think of these things. They have that holy mission to get on with. Never looking before they vaporize all life forms and all that.
Ok, they destroyed Egypt, the Mediterranean and (presumably) the Mideast. Destroying a good deal of the religious conflict in the world with the destruction of the 'Holyland'. Mexico, the American Southwest and (hopefully) Texas. Good bye to the Narco-terrorists and corrupt Mexican officials and Texas. And finally Indonesia. But they missed Canada. That's OK, Tom Servo's got em. Just kidding, I rather like the Canadians and their nation, I think that there's a federal law though that requires me to poke fun at them annually or face prison time. Sorry Canuks.
The coolest thing about the movie is that they built a full sized replica of 60% of Stonehenge in the Canadian countryside rather than going for straight up CGI effects. I so much prefer practical visual effects over those generated by a computer. They give the world that the filmmakers are trying to create some substance. And the Stonehenge recreation looked fairly impressive on screen, especially for a low-budget made for TV movie. Amazing what you can accomplish with Styrofoam!
So they covered aliens and Stonehenge represented. But what about Atlantis? I feel that this film owes it to us to explore the Atlantis connection in all of this. Oh well, maybe in the sequel. To think, the bastards shot down my Mutant Killer Space Monkey idea.
The best part of the movie, after the Stonehenge in Styrofoam set, was the behind the scenes interviews with the actors trying to explain the characters and what the movies were all about. I get the feeling that the star didn't think through accepting the part, as he expressed several 'oh really?' moments. Watch it. And if your head doesn't explode, then thank me.
My question is: Why will SyFy put on this poorly made low budget schlock when they could have The Dead Gentlemen's work. TV execs are idiots.
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