IMDb Bottom 100 Review - Number 31 The Final Sacrifice

My media center (Kodi for those at home wondering - it’s a really nice piece of software, that has served me extremely well so far. Yes this is a plug. No I don’t get anything from or is affiliated with Kodi in anyway. I just like their software. It’s what open source is all about) has this thing, where it cycles through a picture from each movie in my library instead of displaying a static background. The picture from this movie shows one of the main guys wielding a stick. Everytime I saw that picture, I thought for a second it was Dennis Quaid. It isn’t. It’s this movie. I dislike this movie. I hate Dennis Quaid. No matter the outcome I lose. Fuck my life. Read how fucked my life is, when I take a bad short look at…

I'm no mechanic, but this can't be healthy. 

The Final Sacrifice (1990)

Remember the first paragraph of this review, where I was really negative and talked at length about how I hated this movie? Well it’s not actually that bad. Ok it is pretty bad. But not THAT bad, if you catch my drift. If you don’t, thankfully I’ll be writing another 1300 words give or take to explain. This movie is, if not unique, then at least rare in a B100 context, in as much as the story it follows actually kind of makes sense. Now, before you reach for the defibrillator, let me clarify. The story is ultra stupid, bordering on 3rd graders would question it’s logic stupid. But it is sequential, meaning events are connected and follow a red thread that isn’t deviated too far from. I was kind of impressed, because this is exactly the kind of movie that wouldn’t have any of these things going for it. It’s exactly the kind of movie I’d expect to be all over the place. All this being said, it was still like watching Bobcat Goldwaith in drag, trying to seduce a confused Lena Dunham. Or something to that effect.

The map they are all chasing after. Like imagine picking this up, and somebody telling you'd they'd kill you for it. "Wha... this shit? My infant brother could draw this better."

The story is, in all it’s simplistic glory, that a cult of Canadian Wrestlers are looking for an idol so they can take over the world. I feel as if I could probably stop this review right now, and you would be entertained enough from that concept sinking in alone. But alas, I’m not getting paid for half a page of text. I’m actually not getting paid at all, but you know what I mean. One dude, the name of whom we never learn or care to learn, had found a map that supposedly leads a way to this idol. The Canadian wrestlers want to get their grubby little wrestler hands on this map. Before being shot out in the middle of the wilderness by said gang of Canadian wrestlers, the dude had apparently left it for his son, Troy, to find. Troy, totally his father’s son, finds the map. It's unclear if Troy was told to look for the map or if he just stumbles on it by happenstance one day, but it seems to have happened shortly after his father was shot. Before Troy knows it, he is chased by the wrestlers, and somehow ends up in the back of Rowsdower’s pick up truck. Who is Rowsdower, you might ask? He's Zap god damn Rowsdower, that's who. He's a guy who happens to be passing by. Rowsdower, ever up for shenanigans, takes kindly to Troy, and together they embark on the quest to find the idol. However, what Troy doesn't know, however, is, that Zap Rowsdower is more than just a ridiculously looking whiter trash version of Dennis Quaid. Unbeknownst to Troy, Zap motherfucking Rowsdower just so happens to be an ex Canadian Wrestler Cult Member Guy. Yes. What are the odds? Trademark hourglass tattoo on his left shoulder and all. He left them when they started beating up kids for milk money and has made a living as resident drifter slash gigolo catering exclusively to other drifters ever since.

Rowsdower accepts the kid into his one man wolfpack. 

The Wrestler Cult leader is a weird looking motherfucker, but he is the villain so that’s totally understandable. As opposed to his skimasked and wife beater wearing cohort, he is in a suit and tie. I’m not sure what his deal really is, but what I do know, is that he wants that idol in a big fucking way. Rowsdower and Troy are grinding his gears, so he goes all out to rid the world of Zap and his new companion. They, in turn, stumble into an abandoned house next to, as indicated by the map, the idol supposedly resides. They narrowly escape the wrestlers and meet another even shabbier looking dude who apparently was buddies with Troy’s dad. Small world. I won’t give away the ending, but basically Troy and Zap go through more shit, find the idol, is taken hostage, break free, kill the evil dude and raise a hidden city that either pops out of existence or floats into space. I wasn’t clear on it's ultimate destiny. Rowsdower magically loses his hour glass mark, and we can rest easy knowing the evil of the Wrestler Cult has come to an end. I guess I did want to give away the ending anyway.

Old guy in the cabin who just so happens to be a vital part of the story is done with your shit. 

The production value of this movie was pretty shitty to say the least. They managed to get around some of it by cutting scenes right when people got shot to a wide angle of the woods, so as to save on stunts and fake blood. They probably couldn’t afford birds fluttering away in a bird-like panic, but I’ll take it. The raising of the temple city thing at the end was actually somewhat decently made, but all the rest was so so. I’ll give them a few points for performing some semi cool stunts, jumping into moving vehicles and what have we. It doesn’t take much to impress with these movies, but even so it deserved mention. They even managed to get identical costumes for the surprisingly large number of wrestlers they put on screen at the same time. And prop guns too. Credit where credit is due, am I right?

Jumps into a moving god damn truck. That's not bad. And the Wrestler Cult guy was so close too!

Everything else besides what I just mentioned, and the story was utter shit. Zap Rowsdower is literally the stupidest name I’ve ever heard I think. The guy who plays him looks enough like Dennis Quaid to get me all pissed off, so that didn’t bode well for the movie. The connections that link the characters are far fetched and so vague, they might as well just have been text on the screen. “Troy is that guy who was shot at the beginning’s son” captioned over a panorama of wherever in Canada they shot this. Also Troy jumps into Zap’s car as it is driving past. When Zap realizes later, he isn’t, as most people would be, annoyed to find a 12 year old kid in the back. He immediately recruits Troy to help him fix his car. The car is fixed by pouring whiskey or vodka into the carburetor starting a small fire. I’m no mechanic, but besides the ignition, I can’t think of a single scenario in working on engines that would be improved by actual fire. But his truck may be special. It purrs like an armadillo shortly after, and Zap literally hugs Troy for helping. They are BFFs after that. Also the motivation for the Wrestler Cult to take over the world isn't ever explained. World domination is NOT as cool a concept as one might think. I don’t know why it’s always made out to be something you’d want in movies. Like there are 7 billion people on Earth, most of which are blithering imbeciles, or speaking other languages or haven’t got access to running water. What is so good about ruling the world? You’d be killed within a day. Didn’t these people play Sim City?

It was a close run for Rowsdower, but he managed to escape and assist the kid in saving the world. Even up against so many wrestler dudes and evil guy in suit, Rowsdower took names. 

Most of the people associated with this, like in Troll 2, weren’t really in anything again. I didn’t click through the entire cast list of faceless people, but nothing appeared familiar. I guess for a “hey guys let’s make a movie’ production, this wasn’t terrible. I’m wondering if Zap Rowsdower was a hobo they couldn’t boot from the set so they decided to give him a part instead. Or if he was a travelling Dennis Quaid impersonator, down on his luck, who happened to wander into a backyard audition. I might never know. What I will know, however, is that The Final Sacrifice would rank in the Top 10 best worst movies I’ve watched so far. It doesn’t really know if it’s action or horror or whatever, but even tumbling blindly around genres, it managed to not piss me the fuck off. And that’s kind of an achievement these days. As I’m heading into home stretch, it’s nice to know I can do other stuff with these movies in the background, and not feel like I’m basically wasting an hour and 18 minutes of my life. Yay!

Rows-Goddam-dower doesn't just say yes without seriously scrutinizing the proposal.