This film is awful. Just bloody awful. The acting is atrocious, the writing worse, and the virtually identical heavy metal music during every action seen is outright bizarre. Ron Jeremy’s cameo is slightly amusing, in that it is almost entirely comprised of him wandering around the woods alone yelling, “hello, anybody out there?” but other than that this film is an all-out dud.

Which is why I don’t understand it. I’ve seen bad films with some redeeming features – some glimmer that at least indicates what the creators thought they were going to accomplish, however misguided or unatainable the end product may have been. But with Curse of Pirate Death, I really don’t get it. There is no way this is a story someone wrote down with the thought that it needed to be told (the plot, by the way: pirate dates witch, witch charms pirate so he never dies and can bring her back to life after she dies, pirate spends eternity looking for “me treasure”, while wielding plastic hook. Or something to that effect.)

The only possible answer I can come up with is that there are folks out there as nutty about gore as others are about smut, and will therefore gladly watch a film in which the entire movie is merely a shallow effort to string together various special effects into something that only vaguely resembles a movie (This would be the gore equivelant of two smut directors sitting around crafting such genius plot points as, “Hey, how about during the slumber party, the three brunettes decide to order a pizza, and the pizza boy is some dude they ask to join them?” to which the other director says, “Hey, what if instead of three brunettes, we had four blondes?” to which the first director responds, “Wow, that’s inspired!”)

So, if we watch this with the same critical eye as the average stag film and forgive the acting, plot, lighting, music, direction, costume consistency (indeed, there’s at least one scene where a girl’s outfit changes back and forth between camera shots) – if we forgive virtually every aspect that goes into making a half decent film, how’s the gore? All right, I guess. Mostly just splattered blood by the bucketload, and mangled wounds that might be skin and brains, or might be oatmeal and latex. There are a few exceptions, including when Pirate Death breaks his hand through the back of a girl’s neck so it comes out her mouth, but mostly it’s nothing to write home about.

If you like low budget gore, give it a go. Maybe. But otherwise there’s really no point.

Some bad movies are just that – bad. They should be ignored, dismissed, or burned. They have no value and are a waste of your existence to even consider viewing. Other bad movies are an ironic piece of brilliance, enjoyable on levels that no “good” movie could ever hope to achieve. These movies are meant for a group of rowdy friends sharing rum. But this movie? It lies firmly within one of these categories, and I strongly suspect it’s the former.

Basically “Treasure Island”, but with gratuitous man-eating bugs. I say gratuitous because they’re barely used – this movie would be essentially unchanged if you removed them. But there they are, nonetheless – towering over Long John, and bellowing their maneating howls as they shudder in harmless CGI malevolence.

Also gratuitous is the plentiful PG-13 cleavage. Nothing actually naughty here – just enough to catch your attention, but never enough that you’d fear your mom walking in on you and asking, “so what’s this smut you’re watching?”

So what else need be said? I suppose I could go on about the story, but it’s more fun to hone in on the weird little details, such as Blind Pew’s googly eyes. They’re shown in the first 30 seconds, and I immediately shouted at the TV, “you CAN’T be serious!” Apparently they were.

Of course, movies such as this shouldn’t be held to any real continuity standards, which is good, because it means I don’t have to mention the colonial flags used, which bounce between the revolutionary war “Betsy Ross” flag with its circle of stars, then to a more civil war era square pattern, and then back again. Yes, I’m glad I don’t have to mention that. Nor should I mention Anne Bonney’s sudden reappearance towards the end of the film, after I thought she’d just been killed. A quick rewind showed what I think might have been her recovering from her bullet wound, but I lost interest as I noticed her outfit getting skimpier with each scene (but still safely within the limitations of PG-13 discretion – have no fear.)

Oh, and let’s not forget the rubber skeleton mask.

Weird. Not good, but very, very weird.

What intrigued me about this movie was the box’s mention of a search for pirate treasure in Lake Michigan. Careful viewers know that 1) Bilgemunky pities the Great Lakes for being sad little puddles of salt-water-envy, and 2) Bilgemunky lives right next to Lake Michigan. So I figured this might be an interesting premise for a non-ocean pirate adventure. That’s why I rented it – and that’s why I watched the first 20 minutes. I watched the other 72 simply for your benefit, dear reader. Lord knows I had better things to do with my time.

The plot could be decent enough. The basic idea is that hundreds of years ago a pirate buried a bunch of treasure in Lake Michigan. It was subsequently discovered by mobsters in the 1920s or so, but they had a shipwreck and had to abandon it – but they made a map. Now, Danny Quinn is obsessed with discovering said treasure, as his own father died searching for it. From there it’s all pretty basic fare: “oh no, Grandpa has tragically died in a deep-lake diving accident – yikes, the government wants to repossess the family schooner and send me to a foster home – hey, let’s go find the treasure and solve all our problems – oh no, it’s the one-eyed banshee!!!”

Yup, standard stuff.

I’d try to explain the plot in further detail, but I’m not sure the writer even fully understood it. If he did, perhaps he can write me and explain why a 200 year old pirate (who looks and talks like a very modern grocer) is sailing around Lake Michigan in a dinghy bistowing advice on children. Or how come a 1920′s psychotic mobster is stil manning a lighthouse not looking a day over 30. Or why we’re supposed to fear Doc Biehler, a villainous bully who pushes everyone around with all 92 pounds of his manly physique. And why does that same Doc’s wheelchair-bound wife turn out to be the One-Eyed Banshee that we hear so much about?

Some movies are difficult to follow because they’re deep and require great analysis. Others are difficult to follow because the creators made stuff up as they went along and followed no real rhyme or reason. Sawtooth Island clearly falls into this latter category. The entire effort, from the filming to the acting to the writing, was completely pedestrian. I always try to put the best face on a pirate project – if it’s lame for adults but great for kids, then I’ll review it from that perspective. If it’s bad but still manages to be fun, then I’ll tell you. But this movie has no value I can see. It’s clean – no foul language or raunchy NBC-style sex (indeed, the movie ends with the hero embracing the heroin in a very platonic hug), so it won’t give kids any bad ideas. But it won’t likely entertain them either.

Still want to know the plot? OK, a bunch of “Survivor” style contestants run around an island and get killed by a cursed pirate. Now go and rent something, anything, else.

Jolly Roger features all the typical elements of most teeny-bopper straight-to-video slasher flicks in the vein of such classics as “Leprechaun in the Hood” and “Jack Frost 2: Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman” – a supernatural villian in search of his treasure kills many people along the way, some of whom get naked first. And while the costume of Jolly Roger himself is actually quite impressive, not much else is. Unbelievably, the best scene in the whole movie, in which Jolly Roger has a heart-to-heart while sharing rum with a bartender, got edited out – you can view it in the “deleted scenes” segment of the DVD.

Jolly Roger is bad. But watch it anyways. If you’re old enough to drink, watch it drunk. If you’re not, well, wait until you’re 21, and then watch it drunk.

Not really a good film, but hardly a bad one. And definitely unique – if it’s in your video store I’d say give it a chance.

Oh jeez – I just realized you might be starting to think this sounds like a decent movie. My bad. Did I mention that they didn’t have enough actors, so many of the extras are played by cardboard cutouts? Or how about the fact that the underwater scenes are shot in a room painted blue with someone just offscreen blowing bubbles? And don’t overlook the fact that this little gem stars Corey Haim and Corey Feldman. This is a bizarre flick, and while it seems to try to poke fun at its own absurdity, it doesn’t do so nearly enough to be forgiven. But it does make lots of pirate references, so watch it if you must – I won’t hold it against you. Just don’t say you weren’t warned.