Recycled Parts (2007) – DVD Movie Reviews

By The Vocabulariast on Sunday, 11th July 2010

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Recycled Parts is one of the most generic and stupid horror movies I have seen in the last decade. Pick an aspect of filmmaking, and I’ll show you how to do it wrong using examples from Recycled Parts. Hell, even the title lends itself to ridicule, considering that the film is basically cobbled together from the recycled parts of other, more successful, mad scientist flicks and body organ harvesting yarns.

In the film, a group of vapid college students (Or high schoolers… I stopped paying attention after a while.) is cruising around L.A. looking for a party. Then the most clichéd of driving clichés happens; the driver is busy arguing with another person, and runs over a pregnant chick. Do they call the cops or an ambulance? No, because some crazy doctor comes running around the corner, informs the kids that he is a doctor, and has them carry the crushed pregnant chick into his poorly lit operating room… which consists of lame lights taped to the wall, behind an excess of plastic sheeting. The doctor proceeds to operate on the pregnant girl, even getting the kids in on the act.

Since every character has the brain cell count of Kurt Cobain, post shotgun blast, they never think twice about the doctor’s strange mannerisms, comments, or the fact that he has a drooling mongoloid named Einstein working as an assistant. Instead, they decide they need to wash the blood off of their car, which of course, turns into random joint smoking and making out, because nothing quite gets a couple in the mood like bloodstains, drooling simpletons, and dying pregnant women. Sadly, the doctor isn’t a real doctor at all, but another in a long, underwhelming stream of generic organ harvesters. The kids are quickly subdued by the wily doctor… after they drink some drugged water that the doctor gives them. Later, the doctor will sneak up behind three other characters and knock their asses out with a mallet… without receiving a single ounce of resistance. From there, the kids must whine, cry, and fruitlessly endeavor to escape their plight. Oddly enough, as bad as I’ve described the film so far, it actually gets worse, but I wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise for you.

The only thing groundbreaking about the film is the fact that the directors decided to share the blame for this monstrosity among three people. Curse you, you talentless fucks! Now I don’t know who to blame for what. Who do I blame for the out of focus hallway scenes? Who do I blame for the lighting which is more inconsistent than a Nicolas Cage performance? Who do I blame for the writing that feels like it was lifted off the inside of a stall at a truck stop? I don’t know, and to find out would take more effort than this film deserves.

Recycled Parts features a fairly bland cast of no-names who have about as much of a future in Hollywood as I do of becoming best friends with Uwe Boll. The only person of real note in the film is David Dartt, not because he’s any good, but because he is clearly trying so hard that you have to feel bad for the guy. You got the heart, chief… but the talent? You’ll probably find more in the dumpster behind a Taco Bell. Everyone else is similarly terrible, and I won’t sully the code of my website with their names.

Even the special effects are miserable. Normally, I enjoy a good low-budget horror flick with cheap practical effects. Certainly, blood is dripped liberally throughout the film. But then there are the bad moments, like when the doctor reaches into a kids skull and pulls out his eyes as if he was plucking cherries from a tree. The pregnant lady’s babyhump is even worse. In one scene, you can clearly see the straight, rubbery edge of her prosthetic belly flopping around. Most of the effects are just as poorly done, and the character’s are so lifeless that the filmmakers might as well have been carving up mannequins in Abercrombie and Fitch.

I like indie horror as much as the next guy, but I do at least require some effort. Recycled Parts plays out like a get-rich scheme from a bunch of dudes who know nothing, nor care a whit, about the horror genre or its fans. And this, besides the terrible acting, directing, and storytelling, is the biggest flaw in the movie.

Final Synopsis: Recycled Parts sucks hard. If it were a hooker, it would pull your intestines through your pee hole. Stay away from it, unless you want that to happen.

Points Lost: -1 for bad acting, -1 for bad writing, -1 for shitty characters, -1 for too many clichés, -1 for poor directing, -1 for out of focus camerawork, -1 for a lack of realistic logic or purpose, -1 for wasting good cheap special effects without having any understanding of anatomy

Lesson Learned: Never take a drink from doctors. How many times do we have to see this?

Burning Question: Does running over pregnant chicks make you horny, as this film would imply?

Recycled Parts
2/10