Decoys Year: 2004 Director: Matthew Hastings Written by: Tom Berry, Matthew Hastings Threat: Aliens Weapon of Choice: Heat IMDb page:

Other movies in this series:
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Rish's Reviews
I recently got to see Land of the Dead with a friend of mine who told me he was working on a sequel to a movie called Decoys. Curious, I looked it up, and it seemed interesting, so I gave it a rent.
On campus, a couple of college guys are looking for a good time. What they find, however, are a couple of killer aliens masquerading as college babes. What do they want? How many are there? And can they be stopped?
I found Decoys both funny and scary, and well-written, acted, and directed. It features a likable cast, a good-looking bunch. Meghan Ory is quite beautiful. The fattish Elijah Wood-cloned best friend character was good stuff.* I did list Nicole Eggert as a Former Celebrity here, even though she was never a celebrity. Hope you'll forgive me.
This had a really good ending, even if it wasn't exactly logical. As a guy who is threatened by women, I really dug this. Dude, I actually screamed--out loud--at one of the early scares, in my own place. It might even have been a Fake Scare. That almost never happens. The aliens, when they're not CGI, are really cool-looking. Somebody somewhere ought to note that. Oh, and tongue kissing is cool. I just had to say it.
Coming from a cold weather locale, it is so strange to see real snow in a movie. Shot in Ontario, the whole film looks colder than Iceman's butthole. I don't know why I always feel it necessary to announce when a film is Canadian, but I will once again. Someone once told me that if you want government kickbacks in a flick shot in Canada, you have to have around 90% of the cast and crew be Canadian. But Canada (where is New Brunswick? [editor: It's touches the northeast border of Maine and is between Montreal and Nova Scotia.]) actually has something to do with the story rather than just convenience or budgetary reasons.
The black comic relief character was not comic, or even black. This is the second time I've seen this in a movie. One character is such a boner that it's a relief rather than a shock when he is killed ("Whew! Thank goodness that's over."). There is a really obnoxious beauty pageant montage in the middle of the film, but even that was unique enough to be entertaining.
This is a really good movie. It misses Great by just a hair. I can't figure out what it is that pushes it away from excellent status. It certainly started strong and ends on a high note. It may be the uneven tone between Horror and Comedy, Sci-Fi and Drama. I guess it's supposed to be funny, but Comedy and Horror is really difficult to pull off. A couple of insideous puns near the end really sucked and pulled me so out of the movie I had to run to the toilet. For example, a detective bursts into the room and says, "Baby got backup!" Almost immediately afterward was a pun so awful, C-3PO might have said it in Star Wars: Episode II.
It felt a bit like "Dawson's Creek" meets Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I imagine, though, that it was pitched as " Species, except in college."
Best Scare: A couple of transformations come out of nowhere, and really jolt you.
I'd Recommend It To: I recommend this one.
*The dude HAS to be Elijah Wood's brother. If he had a hundred pounds on Wood, and was Canadian, of course.
Posted: January 19, 2006

Total Skulls: 21

Sequel
Sequel setup
Rips off earlier film
Horror film showing on TV/in theater in movie
Future celebrity appears
Former celebrity appears		Nicole Eggert
Bad title
Bad premise
Bad acting
Bad dialogue
Bad execution
MTV Editing
OTS
Girl unnecessarily gets naked
Wanton sex
Death associated with sex
Unfulfilled promise of nudity
Characters forget about threat
Secluded location
Power is cut
Phone lines are cut
Someone investigates a strange noise
Someone runs up stairs instead of going out front door
Camera is the killer
Victims cower in front of a window/door
Victim locks self in with killer
Victim running from killer inexplicably falls
Toilet stall scene
Shower/bath scene
Car stalls or won't start
Cat jumps out
Fake scare
Laughable scare
Stupid discovery of corpse
Dream sequence
Hallucination/Vision
No one believes only witness
Crazy, drunk, old man knows the truth
Warning goes unheeded
Music detracts from scene
Death in first five minutes
x years before/later
Flashback sequence
Dark and stormy night
Killer doesn't stay dead
Killer wears a mask
Killer is in closet
Killer is in car with victim
Villain is more sympathetic than heroes
Unscary villain/monster
Beheading
Blood fountain
Blood spatters - camera, wall, etc.
Poor death effect
Excessive gore
No one dies at all
Virgin survives
Geek/Nerd survives
Little kid lamely survives
Dog/Pet miraculously survives
Unresolved subplots
"It was all a dream" ending
Unbelievably happy ending
Unbelievably crappy ending
What the hell?