Dee Snider's Strangeland

You'd have to be the biggest Twisted Sister fan in the world to find anything redeeming about Strangeland, which was written by and stars former rocker Dee Snider. He plays Captain Howdy, a sociopath who kidnaps high-school girls, sews their mouths closed, and tortures them with body piercings. It's The Silence of the Lambs by way of "Ironman," as Howdy is reformed and redeemed, then falls back into his old habits when the town refuses to forgive him.

Setting aside the glorification of rape, torture, and pedophilia, we get dialogue that doesn't even reach the level of laughably bad, jumpy direction that makes the simplistic plot confusing, and a wasted cameo by Robert Englund. For one split-second, when the townspeople are protesting outside Captain Howdy's home, we see a banner reading, "We're not gonna take it." If only the rest of the film had poked fun at itself like that reference to Twisted Sister's hit song, maybe this could have been amusing schlock instead of disgusting travesty. At the Showcase Seekonk 9 and 10.

-- Dan Tobin