Information Review: November 2008

Dance of the Dead (2008)

In 2008, terrorists developed a bio-warfare weapon going by the name "Blizz". They used this weapon in local weather patterns in America. As it falls from the sky, it will instantly burn any living thing it touches. At her seventh birthday party, young Peggy (Emily Graham) watched as her friends were killed by Blizz.

Ten years later, America has been ravaged by the effects of World War III. The death count continues to rise in this dark and bleak future and some states simply no longer exist. Peggy (Jessica Lowndes) is now a naive young teenager, ignorant of the world outside of her mother's diner. She has lost both her father and her sister, Anna, and now depends on her mother, Kate (Marilyn Norry). One day, Peggy meets biker/drug addict Jak (Jonathan Tucker) and his two "friends", junkies Boxx (Ryan McDonald) and Celia (Lucie Guest). The three are into some shady dealings with a nightclub called The Doom Room, located in the town of Muskeet.

Kate warns Peggy that "everything the people of Muskeet do is a goddamn trick", and although she's afraid to disobey her mother, Peggy sneaks out with Jak in the middle of the night to the Doom Room with Boxx and Celia. Muskeet, as it appears, is completely ravaged and the home to nothing more but ravagers and sociopathic bikers and teenagers. The Doom Room is a heavy-metal bar run by a twisted MC (Robert Englund of A Nightmare on Elm Street). As Peggy and Celia watch the band Decree perform, Boxx and Jak go behind the stage to perform a business deal with the MC. They trade him packets of blood, for what has yet to be revealed. The MC promises that he will pay them if their product is good enough for the next "performance". If not, he'll make them eat it.

Back at Peggy's house, Kate awakes to find that she is not there, and instinctively knows that she's in Muskeet.

At that point Peggy witnesses what the performance is. The MC has collected victims of Blizz who suffer from a medical abnormality where they still stand even after they've died. This condition was first discovered in the battlegrounds of the war. They are then pumped with blood and forced to dance, and those who don't move are shocked with electric prods. Peggy watches in horror as the MC brings out her own sister, Anna (Melena Ronnis).

When Anna falls off the stage, Peggy and Jak take her away from the Doom Room, to be followed by the MC and one of his goons. Peggy and Jak meet up with Kate where the MC sheds some light on how he came to "own" Anna. When she was still alive, Anna was just like the other teenagers in Muskeet, and Kate was sick of having to drag her out of the Doom Room every weekend. Then Anna overdosed on drugs, so Kate decided to sell her to the MC, and she was apparently still alive.

Kate is beaten down and tries to explain to Peggy that she sold Anna because they had nothing. Angered at what her mother did, Peggy trades her for Anna. In the end, Peggy becomes another Muskeet style teenager, and watches as Kate's corpse is beaten with electric rods and forced to dance in the Doom Room.

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The Strangers (2008)

The film opens with the following narration:

"What you are about to see is inspired by true events. According to the F.B.I. there are an estimated 1.4 million violent crimes in America each year. On the night of February 11, 2005 Kristen McKay and James Hoyt went to a friend's wedding reception and then returned to the Hoyt family's summer home. The brutal events that took place there are still not entirely known"

The sound of an engine running plays over shots of houses in a rural neighborhood. The scene then cuts to the interior of a ravaged house, with crippled furniture and broken glass around, a bloody knife lying on a table, and blood smeared across the walls. A frantic 911 call plays as two young boys enter the house through the open front door.

The narrative then shifts to the night before, with Kristen McKay (Liv Tyler) and James Hoyt (Scott Speedman) arriving at the Hoyt family's isolated summer home. There is obvious tension between the two, and flashbacks reveal that James had proposed to Kristen earlier in the evening, and his proposal was rejected. While discussing their relationship, the couple is interrupted by loud knocking at the front door. James opens the door to find a young woman with blond hair who asks if "Tamara" is home. They tell the girl that no one by that name lives there and the girl leaves, so they close the door. James then leaves the house shortly after.

While Kristen is alone in the house, the young woman returns, once again knocking on the door and asking for Tamara. Without opening the door, Kristen tells her that she has already visited their house and that Tamara is not there. Moments later, she hears a barrage of loud knocks coming from all over the house. The fireplace sets off a fire alarm and Kristen breaks the alarm trying to turn it off and it falls to the floor. Kristen attempts to call James on her cell phone but the battery has died. She plugs the phone in to charge it and calls James on the land line to inform him that the blond girl has returned. A few minutes into the phone call, the line goes dead. Kristen hangs up before spotting the fire alarm, now fixed, on a chair. Scared, she arms herself with a knife and finds that her mobile phone is now missing; the camera reveals it to be burning in the fireplace. While Kristen is looking through the window to the yard, a man in a sack mask suddenly steps into view. Kristen runs down the hall. The front door opens and Kristen approaches it. The girl from earlier, now donning a doll-like mask, steps into the crack in the door. This obviously frightens Kristen and she locks the door. Kristen then runs and hides in the bedroom, James arrives.

At first skeptical about Kristen's claims, he begins to believe her when they find blond girl, now wearing a doll mask, staring menacingly at the house on the front lawn. James goes outside to retrieve his own phone and find his car hot wired with the tires slashed and the windows all broken. After the couple try unsuccessfully to escape in the smashed car, James arms himself with a shotgun and they both hide in a closet. James' friend Mike comes around after receiving an earlier call from him, however, when he tries to enter the bedroom, James shoots him, believing him to be an intruder. After attempting to calm down, the two discuss their options.

Remembering that there is a radio in the barn outside, James leaves Kristen in an attempt to get help. However, while crossing the lawn to get to the barn, he is ambushed by Pin-Up Girl and the Man in the Mask. The Man in the Mask returns to the house and his heavy breathing is heard by Kristen who flees the house towards the barn and falls into a ditch, breaking a foot in the process. The Pin-Up Girl quietly stalks Kristen unnoticed who crawls into the barn and finds the old radio. Kristen manages to raise someone before the equipment is destroyed by the Pin-Up Girl. Kristen flees back into the house where she is eventually cornered and knocked out.

In the early morning, Kristen and James wake up, tied up next to each other in chairs. Kristen asks the attackers why they are doing this to which Dollface simply replies, "Because you were home." The three killers take off their masks and take turns repeatedly stabbing James. As the killers finish with James and begin stabbing Kristen, the camera shifts to shots around the outside of the house as numerous screams are heard. A wounded Kristen wakes up on the floor next to James' body to the sound of Mike's cell phone going off. Kristen drags herself to Mike's body and upon grabbing the phone, the Man with the Mask returns, takes the phone and calmly leaves the house, leaving Kristen to slump to the ground, apparently dead.

Finished, the three killers drive away from the bloody scene, stopping when the young boys with bicycles pass them on the road. Dollface stops and asks for one of their pamphlets about "Christian living". When asked if she was a sinner, Dollface responds, "sometimes." She takes the pamphlet and gets back into the car as the Pin-Up Girl says, "It'll be easier next time." The young boys are then seen passing the Hoyt house and upon noticing the damage to the vehicles outside, enter the building to find more destruction and various blood splatter. As they search the house, they find the bodies of James and Kristen. As one of them bends down to inspect Kristen, Kristen opens her eyes, grabs the boy's arm and screams.

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One Missed Call (2008)

Elizabeth Raymond (Shannyn Sossamon) is terrified by the deaths of four friends, three of which she personally witnessed, after they received chilling phone calls. The calls were sent from a dead friend's phone, but were apparently from the victims in the future, showing the exact time of their deaths and usually containing their last words. After every death, a small red candy is found in the victim's mouth. Beth reports these strange occurrences to the police; however, they think she is delirious. Detective Jack Andrews (Edward Burns), however, believes her, stating that his sister died in a similar way. Together, they begin to unravel the mystery of the chain of calls, but are unsure if they can figure it out before Beth's phone starts to ring the same eerie tune.

They eventually trace the series of calls back to a woman named Marie Layton, who was apparently abusing her children, Ellie and Laurel, for attention, as in cases of Munchausen by Proxy. They learn that Ellie later died of an asthma attack, and that Laurel is in foster care after her mother went missing.

Believing that Marie is the force behind the murders, Beth travels to the recently burned-down St. Luke's hospital, where Marie was last seen, bringing Laurel in for a cut on her arm. After searching the hospital, Beth finds the body of Marie in the hospital ducting, where she apparently burned to death, clutching a cell phone. Marie's corpse moves and assaults Beth while weeping, and collapses when Detective Andrews makes his way into the ducting to help Beth. During this episode, the time of Beth's own phone call passes without her dying.

After contacting authorities, who arrive to collect the body, Beth returns home and Andrews goes to tell Laurel that her mother is dead. While visiting, Andrews finds a video disc in the back of Laurel's teddy bear. The disc is a video of a camera Marie hid in her children's room to monitor Laurel and Ellie. Ellie, clothed in a black hoodie, cuts Laurel's arm with a large butcher knife. Marie comes in and finds the children, realizing that the abuse she has been blamed for has been Ellie all along, and leaves to take Laurel to the hospital, locking Ellie in the bedroom.
Ellie, frantic, tries to force open the door, and suffers an asthma attack. Reaching for her inhaler, she finds it empty, and dies while dialing her mother's cell phone, making Marie the first real victim of the curse, dying in the fire. Laurel enters the room and Andrews says that it was Ellie who hurt her all the time, not her mother. Laurel nods, and speaking for the first time since the death of her mother, says, "But she always gave me candy," and holds out one of the red hard candies found in the mouths of all the victims.

Andrews realizes that the force behind the murders is Ellie, and races to Beth to make sure she's all right. Finding Beth unharmed, Andrews and Beth hear the doorbell ring and a knock on the door. Andrews looks through the hole, only to die of a knife in his eye, as dictated by the last call received. Ellie then reaches out to strangle Beth, but luckily the spirit of Marie appears and grabs Ellie, saving Beth again. Marie's ghost vanishes, leaving Beth to stare bewildered into the distance. Then the phone begins to dial a number showing that the curse has not ended. Ellie is still out there, and there is another victim that is going to die.

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Saw V (2008)

Seth Baxter (Joris Jarsky), a convicted murderer who was released early from prison on a technicality, is chained to a table beneath a pendulum blade. A videotaped message informs him that in order to survive, he must crush his hands by putting them into two presses and pushing the buttons inside. Even though he does so, the pendulum swings down and slices him in half. The fact that the trap was inescapable marks it as a creation of someone other than Jigsaw (Tobin Bell).

In a scene from the end of Saw IV, Agent Peter Strahm (Scott Patterson) enters the room where Jigsaw died and shoots Jeff Reinhart (Angus Macfadyen) dead in self-defense. He is then locked in by Det. Lt. Mark Hoffman (Costas Mandylor), but soon finds a hidden door that leads into a passage. Here a microcassette recording urges him not to proceed any further; ignoring it, he moves down the passage and is attacked by a figure in a pig mask.
When Strahm wakes up, he discovers that his head has been sealed in a box, which quickly begins to fill with water. A self-administered tracheotomy keeps him breathing until the police arrive at the Gideon meatpacking plant. Hoffman emerges, carrying Jeff’s daughter Corbett (Niamh Wilson) and claiming that he saved her, but is greatly surprised when Strahm is brought out alive as well. The chief of police announces an end to the Jigsaw murders and congratulates Hoffman for closing the cases.

Jill Tuck (Betsy Russell), John Kramer’s ex-wife, receives a videotape and a box from his lawyer. On the tape, John tells her that the items in the box are of great importance and that she will know what to do with them. After looking inside, she takes the box and hurries away without revealing its contents.

Strahm learns that Agent Lindsey Perez (Athena Karkanis) died of the wounds she suffered in Saw IV, and that the last thing she said was Hoffman’s name. He confronts Hoffman with this fact, further unsettling him. Gathering up all the files on Jigsaw’s victims, Strahm revisits some of the crime scenes and pieces together Hoffman’s involvement. Seth had murdered his sister, so he set up the inescapable pendulum trap in revenge. Flashbacks reveal that Jigsaw used his knowledge of these events to blackmail Hoffman into becoming his accomplice. The two worked together to capture Paul Stallberg (Mike Butters) for the razor wire trap in Saw, set up the nerve gas house in Saw II, and discussed plans before Amanda Young (Shawnee Smith) brought Lynn Denlon (Bahar Soomekh) to Jigsaw’s bedside in Saw III.

In a sewer, five people, Ashley, Charles, Brit, Mallick, Luba – wake up in a trap in which collars are locked around their necks, connected to each other and to a set of guillotine blades behind them. The keys to the collars are in glass boxes at the other end of the room. Mallick (Greg Bryk) rushes ahead to get his, and Charles pulls his cord making Malllick fall to the ground, starting a one-minute countdown and dragging everyone else close the blades. One-by-one go toward the box to get the keys, when Mallick goes toward he kick the box causing the key to fall on the ground. Mallick jumps over the glass box to pick up his key, causing Ashley cable cord to pull her back as she was getting close to her box. All but Ashley (Laura Gordon) free themselves before time runs out; and is decapitated when the collars are yanked back to the wall.

In the next room, the four survivors must break jars hanging from the ceiling and find three keys to shelters that can protect them when the bombs in the room explode. Mallick starts breaking the jars when Charles (Carlo Rota) attacks him stating "its survivor of the fittest" continues breaking jars. He then takes a key from Mallick, only to be knocked down by Luba (Meagan Good), who gives the key back to Mallick. Brit, Luba and Mallick enter the three poins of safety. Charles is the only one killed in the explosion.

The third room it requires that the five electrical circuits be connected to a bathtub full of water in order to unlock the door, but they are all too short to reach it. Luba then swings the metal rod from the previous from against Mallick, figuring a body is need to connect circuits.Brit (Julie Benz) stabs Luba in the neck, and she and Mallick throw the body in the tub and hook the cables to it so the door will open.

In the fourth and final room, the exit door can only be opened by filling a beaker with ten pints of blood, to be obtained by the captives putting their arms into a box fitted with circular saws. Here, noticing five holes in the box for their arms instead of two, Brit realizes that the five of them were meant to work together so that they could all survive to this point. With no other options, she and Mallick begin sawing their arms to fill the beaker themselves.

While these games are playing out, Hoffman steals Strahm’s cell phone and uses it to make Strahm’s boss, Dan Erickson (Mark Rolston), think that Strahm is Jigsaw’s accomplice. He plants the phone and Erickson’s own personnel file outside the exit from the fourth room, and Erickson arrives here just as Brit and Mallick get the door open. Both pass out from blood loss as Erickson calls for backup; he then puts out an all-points bulletin for Strahm's arrest.

Strahm’s investigation brings him to a small room that contains a transparent box full of broken glass. A recorder inside the box delivers a message from Hoffman: Strahm will have to trust him and get in if he wants to survive. Instead, Strahm stops the tape short, hides in a corner and ambushes Hoffman when he enters the room, eventually throwing him into the box and closing it. Strahm then plays the remainder of the tape, learning that if he did not comply, he would die and "simply vanish." The door to the room closes and locks as the box lowers Hoffman safely beneath the floor, while the walls come together and crush Strahm to death.

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Vipers (2008)

When a mishap at a remote medical research laboratory unleashes a mass of genetically enhanced vipers on a nearby seaside community, the only hope for survival is to make it to the shore before the snakes and hope for the best. It was supposed to be a secure facility, but when thieves broke in to the classified medical research laboratory they unwittingly unleashed hell on the unsuspecting locals. Now, as the ravenous vipers begin to reproduce at an alarming rate, they quickly begin to outnumber the residents of a remote island, who barricade themselves in a hotel in a desperate bid for survival. No one seems to know whether help will arrive in time or not, and as the lobby floor becomes a sea of hungry snakes, the only hope for escape is to run for shore and never look back. Tara Reid stars.

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Never Cry Werewolf (2008)

When 16-year-old Loren (Nina Dobrev) and her family greet a new neighbor, a good-looking single guy and his dog, she senses something mysterious and dangerous about him. Her suspicions become further aroused when some of the locals begin disappearing one by one. As Loren becomes obsessed with her neighbor's behavior, she is unaware that he is monitoring her just as closely like a hungry wolf stalks its prey at night. With the help of local TV hunting show personality Redd Tucker (Kevin Sorbo) and a delivery boy with a secret crush on attractive Loren, the unlikely trio prepare for a full-moon showdown against an immortal creature with insatiable bloodlust.

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Prom Night (2008)

Donna Keppel (Brittany Snow) has survived a terrible tragedy, but now the time has come to leave the past behind and celebrate her senior prom in style. When the big night finally arrives, Donna and her best friends prepare to enjoy their last big high-school blowout by living it up and partying till dawn. But while Donna is willing to look past her nightmares and into a brighter future, the man she thought she had escaped forever has returned for one last dance. An obsessed killer is on the loose, and he'll slay anyone who attempts to prevent him from reaching his one and only Donna. Who will survive to see graduation day, and what will Donna do when she's forced to confront her greatest fear? Scott Porter, Jessica Stroup, and Dana Davis co-star in the slasher remake that will have tuxedo-clad teens everywhere nervously looking over their shoulders as they file out onto the dance floor.

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[Rec] - (2008)

REC revolves around a television reporter, Ángela Vidal, and her cameraman, Pablo, who cover the night shift in one of Barcelona's local fire stations for the fictional documentary television series 'While You Sleep'. The firehouse receives a call from an apartment building about a woman who is trapped. When they arrive, the police break down the door, with Ángela and Pablo recording their actions. The woman becomes extraordinarily aggressive and bites one of the policemen. Meanwhile, the terrified residents gather in the entrance hall, and look on as the police and military seal off the building. The firefighter who remained at the old lady's apartment is bitten and tossed down the stairs. The camera crew, the remaining cop and the second firefighter go up again and are attacked. The cop aparently kills the old lady with a shot, which is confirmed by Ángela who asks Pablo to rewind and replay that part of the tape. The camera crew remain trapped inside the building with the residents, and continue recording in spite of police pressure. Ángela interviews a little girl named Jennifer who lives with her parents and dog in the building. Jennifer is ill with what her mother claims is tonsilitis. She says her dog, Max, is at the veterinarian because he appeared to be sick as well.

A health inspector wearing a hazmat suit arrives and attempts to treat the injured, who become fiercely violent despite their critical injuries. The health inspector explains that the time the disease takes to cause sickness depends on blood type. The health inspector also reveals that, sometime during the previous day, a dog with the illness was taken to the veterinarian; the dog became violent and attacked and killed other pets at the clinic. The dog was euthanized, and was traced back to the apartment building. Jennifer, the girl who owned the dog, then suddenly attacks her mother. The inspector tells the distraught residents that this unknown but virulent disease is infecting people, causing them to turn into bloodthirsty savages. More and more people in the building become infected, and Ángela and Pablo are forced to fight them off. They find out that some of the corpses have disappeared and soon discover that the people presumed dead are now infected and chasing them. Eventually they learn that there is a key to a door in the apartment building workshop, which leads to an exit via the sewer system. However, the key is located on the third floor in a resident's apartment.

After finding the key, Ángela and Pablo appear to be the only human survivors, everyone else being dead or infected. Rather than making their way to the workshop, they are forced upstairs to the penthouse by the remaining infected. They then search the penthouse, and discover that its former owner was an agent of the Vatican who was charged with researching and isolating a suspected virus believed to be the biological cause of demonic possession, which was later confirmed to exist in a young girl who was supposedly possessed. The agent kidnapped and brought the girl to the penthouse to conduct his research and to possibly cure her; unfortunately, during the work the virus managed to mutate and become contagious. A door to the attic opens, and Pablo uses his camera to look inside. Something jumps at the camera and breaks its light. Pablo turns on the night vision to see in the dark and discovers the sealed door referenced earlier by the agent on an audio tape. The agent abandoned his efforts to cure the girl after failing to engineer a vaccine and sealed her in the room before leaving the city. The girl, now a ghoulishly emaciated figure, begins searching the kitchen area, unaware of Ángela and Pablo's presence. Pablo tries to escape, but trips and is viciously attacked by the girl, making Pablo drop the camera. Ángela picks it up and runs, only to trip and drop the camera as well. She searches for it but is unable to find it. The camera continues to record as the screams of the infected girl are heard and Ángela is dragged into the darkness, screaming.

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The Midnight Meat Train (2008)

The film opens as a well dressed, barrel chested man (Vinnie Jones) stalks the late-night passengers of a subway train. He assaults and kills several people with a large meat hammer and a butchers hook. He dispatches his prey wordlessly with a seemingly unnatural strength. He wears a ring on his finger, adorned with an eight-pointed star.

We are then introduced to the character of Leon (Bradley Cooper), a vegetarian free-lance photographer who heads into the city's subway system at night to take photographs that capture the city. He shows some of his photos to a gallery owner (Brooke Shields) and is criticized for leaving before catching the "real life of the city" that he talks about. One night, in a decision to break this trend, he saves a woman from a gang that is abusing her. The next day, he discovers the girl was a model who has gone missing. Leon attempts to turn over the photos of the girl in to a police detective, but the detective refuses to believe him and instead casts suspicion on Leon's own motives in photographing the victim.

Leon is intrigued by the mystery and begins to hang around the subway station where he had last seen her. Through the distinctive ring, Leon connects the model's disappearance to a silent butcher named Mahogany whom he begins to suspect is responsible for not only this disappearance but many others.

Leon's involvement quickly turns into an obsession as he starts to ignore his personal life and upcoming art opening to follow Mahogany. After reading old newspapers Leon starts to suspect these subway killings have been going on for as long as a hundred years.

Leon's obsessive behavior is upsetting to his waitress girlfriend Maya (Leslie Bibb), who is as disbelieving of his story as the police detective. Leon decides to take matters into his own hands, following Mahogany onto the subway, and ends up witnessing a shocking bloodbath: the butcher kills several passengers and then hangs the bodies on meat hooks. Mahogany notices Leon taking pictures, smiles, and then charges at him. The confrontation ends after a very brief struggle with Leon passing out on the subway car's floor. He awakens the next morning in an abandoned subway station beneath the slaughterhouse where Mahogany works. He is missing his camera and has strange markings carved into his chest.

Between Leon's obsession and increasingly unusual behavior, a concerned Maya and Leon's best friend Jurgis (Roger Bart) begin to examine the photos Leon has been taking of Mahogany, leading them to the killer's apartment. In the hopes of finding Leon's camera to confirm or deny his seemingly insane story, the pair break into the butcher's home after he goes out. Maya comes across a bundle of subway schedules dating back to the 1800s but Jurgis is captured when the butcher abruptly returns. Maya flees and goes to the police, but the same detective that Leon spoke with is unwilling to listen to her story. When the same detective later approaches Maya asking for the bundle, she suspects the detective is part of the mystery. Maya questions the detective and is told Jurgis is on the train where the murders took place. Leon, unaware of Maya's involvement, heads to the hidden subway entrance in the slaughterhouse, arming himself with a butcher's apron and several slaughterhouse tools.

Leon enters the train as Mahogany has completed his nightly massacre and cornered a helpless Maya. Leon attacks the murderer with a knife, beginning a climactic battle between the photographer and the butcher. They fight among the swinging human meat, Leon's knives against Mahogany's meat hammer, and human body parts are ripped, thrown, and used as weapons in the shower of epic gore. Finally, Mahogany is thrown out of the train by Leon, but not long before it hits its final stop. The train has entered an underground cavern filled with skulls and decomposing bodies. The conductor (Tony Curran) of the train enters the car, advising Leon and Maya to "please step away from the meat." With these words, the true purpose of the underground station is revealed as horrible creatures enter the car, consuming the bodies which have been delivered.

Leon and Maya flee the subway but are confronted as a battered and bleeding Mahogany returns. Leon and Mahogany once again begin to struggle, and after a vicious battle, Leon manages to stab Mahogany in the neck with part of a human bone. Mahogany drops to his knees, grins, and utters "welcome" before Leon kills him.

With the butcher's death, the conductor explains to Leon that the creatures have always existed below the city, and that the butcher's job was to keep them satisfied by feeding them every night. The conductor then picks up Leon, and with the same supernatural strength as the deceased butcher, rips out Leon's tongue, and proceeds to eat it. The conductor then cuts out Maya's heart with one of the butcher's knives. When he is done, he thrusts the heart towards Leon and tells him that, having killed the butcher, he must take his place.

In the final scene, the police detective hands the bundle of train schedules to the butcher, who wears the ring with the eight-pointed star. The killer walks onto the midnight train, and turns his head to reveal that he is Leon.

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Zombie Strippers (2008)

The film opens with a news montage explaining that it is set in the near future where the Bush administration has been elected to a fourth term, shut down the United States Congress, instituted a ban on public nudity, and is embroiled in a war with France, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Canada, and an independent Alaska. To support the war effort, a secret laboratory run by Dr. Chushfeld (Brad Milne) in Sartre, Nebraska has developed a virus to re-animate dead marines and send them back into battle. However, the virus has broken containment and infected test subjects and scientists are at risk of escaping the lab. A team of marines codenamed the "Z" Squad is sent in to destroy the zombies, but one of the marines named Byrdflough (Zak Kilberg) is bitten and escapes. The infected marine ends up in an alley outside an underground strip club named Rhino. The marine dies and awakens as a zombie that goes into the club.

Rhino is run by Ian Essko (Robert Englund). A new stripper named Jessy (Jennifer Holland) has arrived at the club to save up enough money for her grandmother's operation. She is introduced to the club's star dancer, an intellectual stripper named Kat (Jenna Jameson). Kat begins her dance on the stage, but is attacked by Byrdflough, who ends up biting and infecting her. Essko is concerned about losing his best dancer, so he lets her go back on stage as a zombie. To everyone's surprise, Kat is a better and more popular dancer as a zombie than she was as a human.

The other strippers now find themselves faced with the prospect of losing their customers, since the men now prefer zombie strippers instead of human strippers. One by one, the human strippers become zombies, some by choice in order to compete or (in the case of a Goth stripper Lillith played by Roxy Saint) for fun. During private dances, the zombie strippers bite and kill their customers. Essko tries to keep the zombies hidden in a cage in the club's cellar, but eventually, the zombies escape and overrun the club. The strippers fight each other for supremacy, which includes a moment where Kat shoots ping-pong and billiard balls out of her vagina at her opponent.

The remaining humans in the club struggle to survive until the "Z" Squad burst in to destroy the zombies. But they discover that the zombies were allowed to escape by the Bush administration, who hoped that the ensuing zombie plague would distract the population from the war and the economy.

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Horror

THE MUMMY: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR (2008)

Han (Li), a warlord in Ancient China, conquers his enemies and becomes the first Emperor of China, known as the Dragon Emperor. As his first act as emperor, Han orders the construction of the Great Wall of China, burying his former enemies beneath it and cursing them to hold it up for all eternity. Han orders a witch, Zi Yuan (Yeoh), to search for the secret to immortality with the aid of Han's second in command, General Ming Guo (Wong). Zi Yuan and Ming fall in love, angering Han who desired Zi Yuan for himself. After Zi Yuan supposedly casts the immortality spell on Han, he kills Ming and wounds Zi Yuan. She then reveals that she has in fact cursed Han and his army who are encased in terracotta, becoming the Terracotta Army, permitting Zi Yuan to escape.

In 1946, 13 years after the events of The Mummy Returns, Alex O'Connell (Ford), son to Rick (Fraser) and Evelyn (Bello), locates Han's tomb with the financial backing of Roger Wilson (Calder), an archaeology professor. Alex is attacked by an unknown woman, but succeeds in bringing Han's coffin to Shanghai. Meanwhile, the British government entrusts the O'Connells to take the Eye of Shangri-La back to China as a good faith gesture to the Chinese. It is revealed that Wilson is in league with a paramilitary group led by General Yang (Chau-Sang) and his second-in-command, Choi (Meng), who see Han as the only one who can bring order and greatness back to China. The mysterious woman from the tomb attacks Han in his coffin, which only turns out to be a decoy. Yang and Choi use the Eye to remove the terracota encasing Han and resurrect him. Han accepts the service of Choi and Yang but kills Wilson. The woman from the excavation site tries to kill Han with a dagger cursed by Zi Yuan, but is unsuccessful and Han takes the dagger.

The woman reveals herself to the O'Connells as Lin (Leong), Zi Yuan's and Ming's daughter, who is immortal due to the power of the waters of Shangri-La. The group, along with Evelyn's brother Johnathan Carnahan (Hannah), travel to a tower in the Himalayas that will reveal the path to Shangri-La when the Eye is placed on top of it. They hold off the soldiers under Yang with the help of three Himalayan Yeti summoned by Lin, but are ultimately unable to prevent Han from learning the location of Shangri-La. He also tries to kill Alex to keep him from starting a avalanche by throwing a dagger at him, but Rick jumps in and takes it in place of his son. The avalanche triggered by Alex allows them to reach Shangri-La before Han and meet with Zi Yuan. Zi Yuan heals Rick's wound. Alex and Lin have grown attached to each other but Lin pushes the relationship away due to her immortality. However, Han attacks them in Shangri-La, where he bathes in the waters which restore his human form and youth, replenishes his powers, and gives him the ability to shapeshift. He transforms into a three-headed dragon, kidnaps Lin, and flies to his tomb where he raises the Terracotta Army. Han announces that once he leads his army across the Great Wall, an ancient spell will make them invincible.

The O'Connells and Zi Yuan pursue Han to the Great Wall where Zi Yuan sacrifices her own and Lin's immortality to revive those buried beneath the Great Wall and General Ming. The undead army and the Terracotta Army fight while Zi Yuan fights Han, sacrificing herself to steal back a cursed dagger- the only weapon that can kill him. Han transforms into a Chinese demon and goes beneath the Great Wall in order to use his powers to draw Ming's army back underneath it. Rick and Alex tackle Han with the dagger but are outmatched and the dagger is broken. Rick challenges Han to a fair fight, and when Han transforms back into human form, Rick manages to plunge the dagger broken hilt into Han's heart while Alex stabs Han with the tip of the blade, piercing his heart and killing him. With Han defeated, his army crumbles and turns to dust. Ming's army celebrates briefly before going back to rest.

The O'Connells return to Shanghai, where Alex and Lin fall in love. Jonathan decides to move to Perú with the Eye of Shangri-La, which he had stolen himself, believing there won't be any mummies there. An ending sentence appears, explaining that shortly after his arrival, mummies were soon discovered.

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College Road Trip (2008)

The film is about Melanie Porter (Raven-Symone), an extremely smart 17-year-old college-bound girl who is getting ready to graduate from high school and really wants to go to Georgetown University. However, her over-protective father, Chief James Porter (Martin Lawrence) isn't ready for her to leave and study so far away from home. Porter has other plans for Melanie; he wants her to go to Northwestern University which is 28 minutes away from their home. Porter also receives problems from disagreements with his wife (Kym Whistley), the family pig Albert, who continuously annoys him, and his youngest son Trey, who spends much time with the pig. Melanie gets invited by a scout, who saw her mock trial performance, to an interview for Georgetown. Melanie gets invited by her two best friends Nancy (Brenda Song) and Katie (Margo Harshman) to join them on their college road trip to Philadelphia. Melanie is all set to go with her friends until her father surprises her with his own college road trip to Washington, D.C. On their journey, Porter still sees his seventeen-year-old daughter as a young child, while Melanie tries to get him to treat her like a woman.

On their way, Melanie reluctantly visits Northwestern to take a tour. Porter secretly fixes the tour as everyone turns out to be actors, one screaming at Melanie they lost an eye at Georgetown. Melanie almost falls for it until one of the actors says to her "Yeah, the chief's a pretty smart guy", since he never met Porter. Melanie is now more upset at her father.

Their car soon breaks down on the side of the road, in which they find Trey in the trunk with Albert, with a supply of oxygen, who Porter says will soon send him meet back to his wife.

They stop at a hotel (thanks to Albert's navigating) but end up causing trouble due to Albert eating coffee beans and becoming hyperactive and ruining a wedding. They later met an extremely happy father and daughter duo, Doug (Donny Osmond) and Wendy (Molly Ephraim), who are on their own college road trip. The two offer Melanie and James a ride since James' car broke down.

Melanie and her father become quickly annoyed, due to their consant singing, unusual greeting. They soon bond on the trip when Melanie remembers their song together on a tour bus, and tried to work out their differences. It is almost broken when she goes to a sorority house her friends and she has been anticipating, in which Porter intrudes, but they end up forgiving each other at the airport. After dropping off Trey, they must skydive down.

When they reach their destination, Melanie and James have learned a great deal about one another and from one another. In the ending James copes with letting go and the closing scene is when the whole family have a Thanksgiving dinner and Melanie introduces her friend Tracy (who is a guy, played by Benjamin Patterson). James learns to cope with this fact, but Doug's daughter announces her engagement to Scooter (Lucas Grabeel) which causes Doug to freak out and attack him.

Deleted scenes include an alternate opening where James foils a bank robbery and a phone conversation where Michelle Porter hears Melanie's and James's complaints while trying to sell a house. The couple think she is talking to another buyer and decide to buy the house themselves.

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What Happens in Vegas (2008)

In New York City, high-strung stockbroker Joy (Cameron Diaz) is dumped by her fiancee at his surprise birthday she threw for him in front of all their friends, and easy-going carpenter Jack (Ashton Kutcher) is fired from his job by his father. Both become emotionally distraught and travel to Las Vegas with their best friends.

They meet by chance when they are given the same hotel room because of a computer error. After clearing up the misunderstanding and receiving and upgraded rooms and coupons to various clubs, they party and drink together and Joy and Jack end up getting married.

The next morning, they realize it was a mistake and decide to divorce. Before they do so, Jack uses a quarter Joy gave him in a slot machine. He hits a $3,000,000 USD jackpot and Joy reminds Jack they are married and is entitled to some of the money. The couple returns to New York, where they attempt to divorce. Their judge (Dennis Miller) declares that the couple cannot divorce until they attempt to co-exist for six months, while attending weekly sessions with a marriage counselor (Queen Latifah). If they work at the marriage but still want to divorce after six months, each will be permitted to keep half the winnings from Las Vegas. If either party does not cooperate, their fortune will be tied up in litigation by the judge.

The newlyweds devise more and more cunning schemes to undermine one another such as, Jack telling Joy that their counseling session is canceled to prove she's not committed, and Joy inviting hot girls to their apartment to try to get Jack to cheat on her. They do this to keep the other's share. At Joy's job retreat, Jack and Joy ironically find themselves developing an unexpected sexual attraction to one another and they soon realize that being with each other has brought out the best in both of them. After they get back from Vegas, it's time for the judge to decide what happens to the money. On her way to the hearing, Joy sees her ex-fiance Mason, and he tells her that he wants her back. He gives her back the engagement ring and tells her that she is good enough for him. This is what Joy told Jack earlier in the movie.

Joy realises that Jack set her up to get back with him, therefore cheating on him and letting Jack keep the money. Joy walks away from Mason and goes to the hearing. At the hearing, their marriage counsellor testifies that the couple truly tried to work on their marriage. The judge decides that they each get 1.5 million dollars, taking away taxes and the bills Joy had run up and Jack had spent on his new carpenting business. Joy tells the judge she doesn't want any money, and gives the engagement ring to Jack, telling him she officially doesn't want anything from him. Jack realises she knows that he talked to Mason. Joy ends up getting the promotion, but tells her boss that she would rather be happy doing nothing than doing something she hated and being miserable. This is exactly what Jack told Joy earlier in the movie.

The next scene is of Jack talking to his parents, and them telling him that it looked like he and Joy were actually in love. He realises he has made a big mistake, and goes to find her friend Tipper to find out where she is. Tipper tells Jack that she went crazy and quit her job, and that nobody knows where she is. Jack realises she has gone to a beach that she told him about, the only place that makes her feel truly happy. Jack asks her to be his wife (again) and she says yes. The movie ends with Jack telling her he hit the jackpot. During the credits, but after the movie offically ends, there's a scene showing what really happened when Jack and Joy got married intoxicated in Vegas.

About a further 20 seconds down into the credits, there's another scene where Tipper cames out her revenge plan on Mason by going round to his flat and punching him in the nuts.

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Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008)

Composer Peter Bretter (Jason Segel) has spent five years adoring his girlfriend, television star Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell), despite living completely in her shadow. His income comes from composing the score on a highly-rated CSI-type crime drama show Crime Scene: Scene of the Crime, a job that in actuality mostly consists of playing repetitive "dark and ominous" tones during forensic scenes. Sarah, whom he met on the job is a high-profile star of the show, enjoying her place in the spotlight while trying to parlay her television fame into a movie career; Peter is writing a puppet Dracula musical called A Taste for Love.

Things take a twist when she breaks up with him.

At the suggestion of his step-brother Bryan (Bill Hader) that he go somewhere to clear his head, Peter takes an impulsive trip to Hawaii, and is confronted by his worst nightmare: Sarah and her articulate, narcissistic new British-rocker boyfriend, Aldous Snow (Russell Brand) of the band Infant Sorrow are also staying at the resort. After Rachel (Mila Kunis), the sympathetic receptionist, watches the painful run-in at the hotel lobby, she gives Peter a free stay in the top-end $6,000 per night suite on the condition that he clean up after himself.

Between crying alone in his suite, drinking alcoholic cocktails from the early morning onwards, and tormenting himself with the reality of Sarah's new life as he bumps into her and Aldous around the resort, Peter finds relief when talking with Rachel whose laid-back approach tempts him to rejoin the world. Although they bond and get along well, she is also reluctant to move things forward too soon, because she too has been recovering from a recent heartbreak.

Simultaneously, Peter becomes friends with many of the hotel staffers and, along with Snow, also offers advice to a devout newlywed named Darald (Jack McBrayer), a Mormon who is having trouble satisfying his new wife, Wyoma's (Maria Thayer) sexual appetite.

Throughout the film, Peter has flashbacks that reveal the negative aspects of his old relationship, which he mostly ignored or was completely oblivious to.

Sarah begins to feel remorse about the breakup and starts to remember the happy times with Peter. Her renewed appreciation for Peter is further displayed when she gets jealous upon seeing him and Rachel prepare to go hiking. Going on a said hike, the two of them end up jumping off a cliff into the ocean and kissing for the first time.

Because they run into each other at the resort, Peter finds he actually likes Aldous and then Aldous uses this new openness to tell Peter he had been dating Sarah for over a year at that point. Peter tries to surf away from him, but in the end Peter crashes into Aldous and they both become unconscious. Both Peter and Aldous are brought to Sarah's room and Peter and Sarah have a heart to heart chat.

Soon after, the two couples run into each other at dinner and end up at the same table. Sarah now realizes that she wants Peter back, even more so when her relationship with Aldous fizzles and he leaves her, giving Peter a warmer farewell than Sarah. In the end, when Peter comes to comfort her for her loss, she begs him to take her back. Though he is initially reluctant, they have a brief physical encounter that Peter cuts short, realizing he cannot get an erection because he is not attracted to her anymore due to years of enduring her repulsive and calculating behaviors. Deciding that she is not worth it if she didn't love him before, he tells her off, calling her the Devil as he leaves. Peter then decides to stay true to Rachel and divulges what happened between him and Sarah moments before, but it backfires – an enraged Rachel tells him to never speak to her again. Before he leaves the hotel, Peter wordlessly hands Rachel a topless photo of herself; it had been put in a local bar's wall collage by her nasty ex-boyfriend and Peter endured a beating from the bar's tough-guy owner to get the photo back to Rachel.

When Peter returns home he finally finishes writing his comedy, the vampire rock opera over a course of personal reflection that allows him to fully recover from his breakup. The opera is soon staged as a black box theater production and on its opening night, all the staff members Peter befriended at the hotel are invited and show up, as well as Rachel, who didn't want to come but had been convinced to do so by the staff members. In the end, Peter and Rachel reconcile their differences and move on to continue their relationship.

A post-credits scene shows that Sarah later managed to get a job similar to her previous character on another crime drama called Animal Instincts which has Sarah starring as an animal psychic police officer.

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Mamma Mia The Movie (2008)

It is 1999 on the enchanting Greek island of Skopelos (Kalokairi). The story begins at the remote Aegean island hotel, Villa Donna, run by Donna Sheridan (Meryl Streep), her daughter Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) and Sophie's fiancé Sky (Dominic Cooper).

Prior to her forthcoming marriage, Sophie nervously posts three wedding invitations ("I Have a Dream") to three different men, one of whom she believes may be her father. From three cities across the globe, three men set off to return to the island, and the woman that had enchanted each of them 20 years earlier.

Back on that island, Donna is rousing her staff for the frenetic day ahead as Sophie's bridesmaids and best friends Ali and Lisa (Ashley Lilley and Rachel McDowall) arrive and she shares with her best mates a scandalous secret: Sophie has found her mother's diary and learned she has three possible dads; American businessman Sam Carmichael (Pierce Brosnan), Swedish adventurer Bill Anderson (Stellan Skarsgard), and British banker Harry Bright (Colin Firth). Without telling her mother, she has invited all three to her wedding ("Honey, Honey"), believing that after she spends time with them, she will at last know who her real father is.

Meanwhile, back on the Greek mainland, Sam, Bill and Harry; strangers until today have met at the harbour. Fortuitously, Sam and Harry have missed the ferry to Skopelos (Kalokairi), and Bill offers them a lift on his yacht to reconnect with the woman who broke all their hearts 20 years ago.

Back on Skopelos, Donna is ecstatic to reunite with old friends and former "Donna and The Dynamos" bandmates, wisecracking author Rosie (Julie Walters) and wealthy multiple divorcee Tanya (Christine Baranski), and reveals her mystification at her daughter's desire for a traditional wedding or any wedding at all. At the Villa, Sophie introduces Tanya and Rosie to true love Sky, and tells them about their idea of designing a website to attract tourists to the island. Donna explains her precarious finances ("Money, Money, Money") to her girlfriends as she takes them on a tour of the Villa. Hounded by her creditors, Donna dreams of a "rich man's world," sunbathing on a yacht and being deliciously pampered. She is brought back to reality as an ominous crack appears in the courtyard.

The three men arrive, and Sophie smuggles them to their quarters and sheepishly explains that she, not her mother, sent the invitations. She begs the men to hide so Donna will have a fantastic surprise at the wedding; seeing the old friends of whom she "so often" favorably speaks. They overhear Donna working in the storeroom below preparing to fix the crack and the men swear to Sophie they will not reveal her secret. Sophie leaves by the window just in the nick of time, as Donna peeps through the trapdoor.

She is dumbfounded to find herself face to face with the three former lovers she could never forget ("Mamma Mia!"), while the men clumsily make up excuses for their presence. Donna is adamant; they simply cannot stay. Visibly shaken, she confides in Tanya and Rosie ("Chiquitita") a secret she has kept from everyone - she is uncertain which of the three men is actually Sophie's father. No matter, as Tanya and Rosie rally her spirits by getting Donna to join in with the female staff and islanders accompanying a musical number intended to make her forget her woes. Donna and The Dynamos reclaim their glory days and champion the women of the island in a call to liberation ("Dancing Queen").

Sophie finds the men aboard Bill's yacht, and they take a trip around the gorgeous island of Skopelos ("Our Last Summer") and tell her stories of Donna as a carefree girl. Upon their return, Sophie musters up the courage to speak with Sky about her ploy, but loses her nerve. Sky and Sophie sing passionately to each other ("Lay All Your Love on Me"), but are interrupted by the bachelor party that has descended upon Sky to kidnap him for his last night of freedom.
At Sophie's bachelorette party, Donna, Tanya, and Rosie perform in a surprise one-night-only event as Donna and The Dynamos ("Super Trouper"). Sophie is delighted to see her mother rock out, but becomes nervous when the festivities are interrupted by the arrival of Sam, Bill and Harry. She decides to get each of her three prospective dads alone to talk.

The young bride uses the confusion of her amorous girlfriends' dancing with the men ("Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)") to speak with Sam about his love for Donna. Next, she's on to Harry about his desire, if any, for children. Finally, Bill reveals that the old woman who gave Donna the money to invest in her Villa was his Great Aunt Sofia, and Sophie guesses she must be her namesake. That's it! Bill must be her father! Sophie asks him to give her away and to keep their secret from Donna until the wedding.

Over the moon, Sophie returns to the party. But her happiness is short-lived as Sam and Harry each tell her they must be her dad and will give her away ("Voulez-Vous"). A shocked Sophie can't tell them the truth and, overwhelmed by the consequences of her action, faints on the dance floor.

In the morning, Rosie and Tanya reassure a frantic Donna they will take care of the men. Donna confronts Sophie in the courtyard, mistakenly believing Sophie wants the wedding stopped. Sophie angrily says that all she wants is to avoid her mother's mistakes and storms off. An upset Donna is accosted by Sam, full of fatherly concern at Sophie getting married so young. Donna dresses him down, and both realize they still have feelings for each other ("SOS").

Meanwhile, on Bill's boat, Bill and Harry are about to confide in each other, but are interrupted by Rosie who is startled to find Bill, naked, making breakfast. Similarly, pulses are racing down on the sandy beaches as Tanya and young Pepper (Philip Michael) continue their May-December flirtations from the previous night ("Does Your Mother Know").

With her plans falling apart and wedding in jeopardy, Sophie knows it is time to come clean to Sky and ask for his help. He reacts angrily to his fiancée's deception and Sophie must turn to her mother for support.

As Donna helps her daughter dress for their wedding, the rift is quickly healed and Donna reminisces about Sophie's childhood and how quickly she's grown ("Slipping Through My Fingers"). Then and there, Sophie decides the only parent she's ever known is the only one who should give her away. As the staff and bridesmaids accompany Donna and Sophie to the chapel, Sam lies in nervous wait. Donna waves the wedding party on, and he begs Donna to talk. She cuts him short, however, revealing the deep pain she felt over losing him ("The Winner Takes It All").

After the ceremony begins, Donna can hold her tongue no more. She confesses to Sophie that her father is present but he could be Sam, Bill or Harry. Sophie, in a shocker of her own, admits she invited them. The three men concur that they would be quite happy to be one-third of a father for such a girl. The surprises keep coming when Sophie tells Sky they should postpone their wedding and travel the world, as they have always wanted. It appears that preparations have been in vain until Sam steps in with the final curveball: he proposes to Donna.

She accepts ("I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do"); Sam and Donna then go through an impromptu ceremony, surrounded by the churchful of guests.

At the wedding reception, Sam sings to Donna, who he has loved for 21 years ("When All Is Said and Done" [in the film only, not the musical]), which prompts Rosie to make a coy play for Bill ("Take a Chance on Me"). All the couples present proclaim their love and, magically, water from Aphrodite's fountain of love bursts through the crack in the courtyard at Villa Donna.
The story concludes as Sophie and Sky bid farewell to Skopelos island and sail away to a new life together ("I Have a Dream"), one full of hope and promise.

Donna, Tanya, and Rosie reprise "Dancing Queen" during the first part of the credits, then launch into "Waterloo" with the rest of the cast. Finally, Amanda Seyfried sings "Thank You for the Music".

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Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay (2008)

Immediately following the events of the first film, Harold Lee and Kumar Patel fly to Amsterdam so Harold can pursue a budding romance with his neighbor. The pair run into Vanessa, Kumar's ex-girlfriend, and her fiancée Colton, at the airport. Harold and Kumar board the plane, and mid-flight, an old woman sees Kumar lighting his new invention, a smokeless bong. She mistakes it for a bomb, and screams "terrorist!" Air marshals immediately detain both, and the plane returns to Washington, where Ron Fox, a neurotic undersecretary of Homeland Security, sends them to the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. They escape, and decide to travel to Texas in search of Colton, with hopes that he will be able to help them through his father, who is connected with several high political officials.

The film follows the same path as its predecessor, putting Harold and Kumar in a series of quirky vignettes, usually centered around themes of drugs, sex, and racism. Neil Patrick Harris returns as his drug-addled, womanizing parody of himself.

After being betrayed by Colton and jumping out of a plane, the pair falls through the ceiling of President George W. Bush's home in Texas, where the President is hiding from Dick Cheney. After bonding over marijuana, the President pardons the pair and sends the Secret Service to help them. Harold and Kumar arrive at the wedding just in time to stop it, revealing Colton's true nature. Enraged, Colton attacks Kumar, but Harold levels him. Vanessa is angry at Kumar for embarrassing her at the wedding, but forgives him when he recites the poem that he had been writing on the day they met, but was too embarrassed to share with her until now. The three leave the wedding, heading to Amsterdam, where Harold finds Maria. The movie ends with everyone enjoying the city and its offerings.

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Step Brothers (2008)

Brennan Huff (Will Ferrell) is a sporadically employed thirty-nine-year-old loser who lives with his mother, Nancy (Mary Steenburgen). Dale Doback (John C.Reilly) is a terminally unemployed forty-year-old who lives with his father, Robert (Richard Jenkins). When Robert and Nancy get married and move in together, Brennan and Dale are forced to live with each other as step brothers. They immediately don't like each other. Dale warns Brennan not to touch his drum set. Later, Brennan plays on the drum set. Dale enters the room and notices a chip on one of his drumsticks and confronts Brennan about it. Brennan denies this and a fight breaks out between the two after Brennan vows and makes good on his promise to "rub my nutsack on your drumset". The fight ends as Dale and Brennan strike each other at the same time with a bat and a golf club. The parents declare that the irresponsible men should find jobs or else they're out of the house. Later on, Brennan's very successful but mean brother Derek (Adam Scott) comes to visit with his family. As Brennan and Dale hide in Dale's tree house, Derek comes to mock Brennan and Dale. Angered by Derek, Dale punches Derek in the face. Brennan is in awe that Dale did something to Derek that he always wanted to do. After this occurred, Derek's long-suffering wife Alice (Kathryn Hahn) finds it arousing that Dale punched Derek, becoming infatuated with him. Both men eventually realize that they have a lot in common, and become best friends.

They take job interviews at which they perform quite poorly. Walking home, Brennan and Dale decide to start their own company called "Prestige Worldwide" and encounter kids that beat up Dale on a regular basis. The kids beat up Dale and Brennan and force them to lick dog feces. At home, the parents reveal that Derek is selling the house. Dale and Brennan sabotage Derek's plans by dressing as bad neighbors (a Klansman and a Nazi) and pretending Brennan had died in front of the buyers. Soon they create a music video to promote their singing talents being shot on Robert's boat and show it to the parents, Derek, and others at Derek's birthday party. The video reveals that the boat was crashed into rocks and Robert punishes them.

During Christmas time, the boys sleepwalk and attack Robert after he wakes them up. Angered by this, Robert forces himself to divorce Nancy and put all the blame on them. Dale and Brennan blame each other for the divorce and go back to hating each other. They go their separate ways as they both get apartments. Brennan starts working for Derek and Dale becomes a caterer. At a sales party for helicopters, the Catalina Wine Mixer (arranged by Brennan), the family meets again just as the band quits due to a heckler. Robert realizes that the boys are miserable and tells them to be themselves again and go for their dream. Brennan and Dale go on stage as Prestige Worldwide and with Brennan's singing, the parents and Derek have a change of character. Robert and Nancy fall in love again and Derek regains the love for his brother. Since this, Dale and Brennan have become a successful karaoke duo. Robert and Nancy get married again and move back into the house with a new tree house made from the destroyed boat just for Dale and Brennan, and in the tree house is filled with porno magazines, crossbows, pirate hats, and Chewbacca masks. following is a statement from Brennan's psychiatrist that the idea is completely insane.

During the end credits, Brennan and Dale arrive in a helicopter and extract their revenge on the kids by beating the living life out of them, and Brennan and Dale have another joint sleepwalking incident where they bump into one another and head out a door.

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Tropic Thunder (2008)

During the filming of Vietnam veteran John "Four Leaf" Tayback's (Nick Nolte) memoir Tropic Thunder, the stars—fading action luminary Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller), five-time Academy Award-winning method actor Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey, Jr.), rapper Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson), low-brow drug-addled comedian Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black), and character actor Kevin Sandusky (Jay Baruchel)—behave unreasonably, resulting in a $4 million explosion going off with no cameras rolling. With filming a month behind schedule only five days into shooting, the media dubs the production "the most expensive war movie never made". Rookie director Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan) is ordered by studio executive Les Grossman (Tom Cruise) to get the production back on track or risk having it shut down.

Acting on Tayback's advice, Cockburn drops the spoiled actors into the middle of the jungle, where he installs hidden cameras and special-effect explosions rigged so he can film "guerrilla-style". The actors have only a map and a scene listing to guide them to the helicopter waiting at the end of the jungle. Shortly afterward, the director is blown up by a derelict land mine left by the French during the First Indochina War, but only Lazarus, and to a certain extent Sandusky, realize his death was real.

Unbeknownst to the actors, they are dropped in the middle of the Golden Triangle, the home of the heroin-producing Flaming Dragon gang. The Dragons believe the actors to be Drug Enforcement Administration agents. When Tayback and pyrotechnics operator Cody Underwood (Danny R. McBride) attempt to locate the now-deceased director, they are captured by the drug producers, at which point Tayback is exposed as a fraud when the prosthetic hooks on his hands fall off. The actors continue to trek through the hostile jungle. After Lazarus and Sandusky discover that Speedman is leading them the wrong way, they split off from him with Portnoy and Chino and leave Tugg continuing to follow the film's script.

Slowly going insane, Speedman is captured and taken to the Flaming Dragon's heroin factory, which he initially believes to be a prisoner-of-war camp from the script. The gang soon realizes that he is the star of the box office bomb Simple Jack (the only movie they have, on VHS) and force him to reenact it several times a day. Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, Speedman's agent, Rick Peck (Matthew McConaughey), is trying to negotiate with an uninterested Grossman a to-date unfulfilled term in Speedman's contract that entitles him to a TiVo on location when they are contacted by the Flaming Dragon gang and are asked for a ransom. Grossman instead curses out the gang and later tells Rick that they can benefit more by collecting the insurance claim on Speedman's death, even offering the agent a share of the profits along with his own personal airplane.

The other actors stumble upon the Flaming Dragon's heroin factory. After seeing Speedman being tortured, they plan an ambush based on the film's plot line. Lazarus impersonates a farmer who has caught Jeff in his farm, distracting the armed guards so Chino and Sandusky can sneak into the building where the captives are held. After the gang notices inconsistencies in Lazarus' story, the actors open fire on the gang, temporarily subduing them.

Portnoy, Sandusky, Chino, and Lazarus find Speedman and attempt an escape in Underwood and Tayback's recaptured helicopter. The gang quickly rejoins, crossing a bridge that Underwood rigged to detonate. Speedman asks to remain behind with his "family", but he quickly returns with the murderous Dragons in hot pursuit. Tayback detonates the bridge just in time for Speedman to reach safety, but as the actors and crew escape from the jungle, the gang fires a rocket-propelled grenade at their helicopter. A disheveled Rick unexpectedly stumbles out of the jungle carrying a TiVo box and throws it in the path of the RPG, saving them all.
Footage from the hidden cameras is compiled into a feature film, Tropic Blunder, which ends up becoming a major critical and box office hit and a multiple-Academy Award winner. The film breaks Speedman's streak of flops and he wins the award for Best Actor, which is presented to him by the previous year's winner, Lazarus.

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