Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

In 2005 film maker Jim Riffel decided that he could make a movie for less than $100 that would be more entertaining than War of the Worlds , which had a budget of $200,000,000. Night of the Day of the Dawn of the Son of the Bride of the Return of the Revenge of the Terror of the Attack of the Evil, Mutant, Hellbound, Flesh-eating, Subhumanoid Living Dead, Part 3 (I will refer to the title as Night of the Whatever for the rest of this review) is the result.

I, like several other movie reviewers here at Epinions, received a copy of this movie for the purpose of reviewing it. The fact that I received it for free has not influenced my opinion of the movie in any way. It has been a few months since I got the movie and I only just watched it. I meant to get to it sooner.

Instead of making a completely original movie, which would have been difficult for $99, Riffel took an older movie, The Brain That Wouldn’t Die, and dubbed in new lines. I did remember a few scenes when I watched the movie, though I don’t think I’ve ever seen the entire movie. I think that movie would be a campy type of science fiction movie. Those can be fun and entertaining to watch at times. If Riffel was trying to create the same feeling with his movie, he failed.

Night of the Whatever didn’t have much of a plot. It started showing two doctors in surgery doing the wrong procedure on a patient. One of the doctors was married to a nurse that showed up. The doctor was paranoid that she was having an affair. A horrible accident left the nurse as only a head that was sitting in a pan of wine in a laboratory the doctors worked in. Her husband went out looking for a woman that had a body he was attracted to so he could put his wife’s head on the body. The nurse started talking with a rapper that was locked in a closet. The other doctor moped around about the fact that he’d never started a micro brewery like he wanted.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from Night of the Whatever before I watched it. When I first heard about the movie, I thought maybe there would be zombies or some sort of monsters in it. There was nothing like that in the movie. I really don’t know why Riffel picked such an absurd title for the movie, especially since he wanted it to be taken seriously. It is impossible for me to even remember such a long title. One character that was shown briefly did look like a mutant. Maybe the nurse could be considered the living dead, though somehow her head never died even though it wasn’t connected to a body anymore. Other than those things, there was nothing in the movie that connected to the title.

Riffel wrote the new lines that were dubbed into the movie. There were references to current cultural things in the lines. I think that Riffel also performed the voices, though I could be wrong about that. Several of the voices sounded very similar to me. The women’s voices sounded masculine. The voices just sounded silly for the most part. The lines were absurd and so bad it wasn’t believable that people would actually say things like that. Most of the lines were sexual in some way. I’ve seen and enjoyed other movies that had a lot of sexual innuendoes or crude language in them, like Bad Santa and The 40 Year Old Virgin. Those types of lines worked in those movies. They didn’t work in Night of the Whatever. Practically every character said some variation of essential the same thing with the sexual remarks, making them all seem like perverts. That got old very fast. I think some of the lines were intended to get laughs. I thought there were very few jokes in the movie. The few times I did laugh was because someone said a line so bad I couldn’t believe it. I have seen this movie described as a comedy. It isn’t.

Riffel added in some strange interludes that had nothing to do with the plot. They were just short, stupid things, like showing a dog with a bone and a man getting the wrong order from a Chinese restaurant, that made no sense. There was no point to those bits and no reason for them to be in the movie. I’m guessing that Riffel wanted the movie to be longer so he added the interludes in to tack on some time to the movie. They were just jarring and didn’t add any sort of entertainment value to the movie. When they were shown, I was just thinking what the heck is this and why is it even in here? Some strange things, including a naked man running down a hallway like he was being chased, were added after the end of the movie for some reason.

There were mainly just three characters in Night of the Whatever, the two doctors and the nurse. She spent most of the movie as a head sitting in a pan. She did talk about having been in a singing group in the past and even talked about getting back into show business. Her husband seemed to be obsessed with sex from the things he said. He spent most of his time looking for a new, hot body for his wife. He did spend some time with several different women during his search. The other doctor didn’t seem to be as interested in experiments. He regretted never starting a micro brewery. The doctors had a rapper locked in a closet. He really just spouted off stupid lines. There was no character development for any of them. I don’t even remember any character names.

Riffel took on this project to make a movie with a tiny budget that was more entertaining than Steven Speilberg’s War of the Worlds. With such a small budget, there is no way that Night of the Whatever could compete with the special effects and I didn’t expect that. I just hoped for something that was entertaining in some way. I have also seen War of the Worlds. There is no comparison between the movies. I enjoyed War of the Worlds. I didn’t think it was perfect, but it was entertaining. Night of the Whatever made me laugh once or twice but I really didn’t enjoy it or find anything about it entertaining. The movie was a giant mess. I’m just glad I didn’t spend any money to see it. Riffel did succeed in making what is probably the most bizarre movie I’ve ever watched.

Night of the Whatever was rather unique, but it was far from entertaining. I would have been very upset if I had actually paid to see this mess. Movies made with lower budgets can be entertaining. $99 just wasn’t enough of a budget to make anything that was even halfway decent.



Recommended: No

Viewing Format: DVD
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age