Curse of Pirate Death

The town of Pirate Point was founded either 100 or 200 years ago (the movie mentions both numbers) by, oddly enough, pirates or farmers, again the movie mentions both. In fact, the movie mentions a lot of things over and over again.


Intensity	Stupidity:Nudity Ratio 8:2	Budget Low

We start with a couple of sorority girls wandering around in the country. One of them finds a necklace hanging on a bush. The other warns her about Pirate Death who kills people who tries to steal his treasure. No sooner is this warning out of her mouth then Pirate Death shows up and kills the two girls. As the story progresses we meet a bunch of college students attending a local history class specifically about the founding of the town and paying particular attention to the legend of the buried treasure and the horrible Pirate Death. Turns out the college professor is Exposition Guy and she fills us in whenever we need to hear about the fighting between the townsfolk and the pirates. The story cuts back and forth between the present and that fateful day when the townsfolk defeat the pirates multiple times. A little more information is added with each flashback until it is finally revealed that one of the students is being possessed by the spirit of Pirate Death's witch girlfriend. We watch the witch's death scene where she tells the pirate that as long as he wears the amulet he will never die and that he should kill anyone who comes near the treasure.

Fake Pirate. Note the silly hat and fake hook.

Real Pirate. Note the less silly hat and not so fake-looking hook.

So we actually have a relatively detailed backstory on this one, pirates, witches, curses, treasures and college kids. Unfortunately, the film is repetitive in many ways. Most of the deaths happen like this: College student wanders into the woods for some reason and stumbles across some of the treasure, at which point Pirate Death shows up and kills them. We play this scenario over and over until we literally run out of cast and then the Final Girl (and Guy) team up and take out the bad guy. Other than these two everyone in the movie dies. The actors who play in the flashbacks get to die twice. Really everyone dies before the credits roll on this one. The deaths are not that interesting in that the special effects are not that special and there is not a lot of variation between them.

In an effort to make sure that the cast gets put in harm's way, everyone finds the treasure without any trouble whatsoever. Perhaps because the town prints out flyers that describe the location of the treasure in great detail. Apparently it is buried by an orange tree near a white wall. You can tell which tree by the wooden ladder near it and yes after one or two centuries the ladder is still there. I mentioned the repetitive nature of the movie, so here are a couple of totals for you.

Number of people who explain the Pirate Death legend: Nine. That's right, nearly half the cast tells someone about the legend, usually right before they are killed.

The acting is pretty bad, most of the actors get through their lines without any problem but they just seem to be reciting the script. The pirate is reduced to saying things like "scurvy dogs" and "shiver me timbers". Perhaps if the editing had been a bit more aggressive or if they had worked more on the deaths, it would have been more enjoyable. The same things just happen over and over until only the two survivors are left and with no one else to kill off, the movie just ends. All of the nudity in the movie is provided by Syn De Vil and her after market chest despite the fact that there were plenty of other girls in the film. And that typifies the film, there are a lot of good ideas and a few decent moments, but it never really comes together. Still, it is not the worst movie you could watch on September 19th (National Talk Like a Pirate Day).