Worst Movies Ever

This will be a running list of the worst movies I've ever seen. In no particular order.
***UPDATE*** In the spirit of positive over negative, in addition to identifying some of the worst movies ever, I will also try and offer up a better alternative.

13.  Gosford Park (2001) - There is a certain strain of British movie that is very leisurely paced yet somehow still manages to be a compelling watch that can even pull you in to a mystery or get you invested in certain characters almost against your will. Think of some of the older Poirot movies and shows or what I assume Dowton Abbey is like. This narcalepsy inducing bore is none of those things. They managed to get that particular brand of classism that is so familar to British entertainment, the stuffy condescension of most of the characters, what I assume is supposed to be razor sharp dialogue and a great depiction of the utterly pointless, superficial activities of upper class England. Sadly, it has almost nothing else. There's a murder at some point but I didn't care about anything that was happening and all I felt was a creeping sense of envy. The other characters in the movie didn't seem particularly bothered either. Some people went hunting, some servants banged some other servants, servants banged some top floor idiots, they played cards and we heard long conversations between staff about what kind of people their bosses were. Terrible as it turns out. The only thing remotely interesting was that someone decided that the best thing to have Ryan Phillippe do was pretend to be Scottish. Outstanding. If the point was to instill a sense of dread about the utter pointlessness of the human experiement, then well done. Gold stars all around. The fact that they tried to sell this as a comedic murder mystery is hilarious. The only thing less interesting than the whodunnit was finding out the answer. Horrific. TRY INSTEAD: Poirot (1989-2013), The Pearl of Death (1944), Layer Cake (2004).

12. Voyagers (2021) - Jesus this sucks. Not even the free pass of a pandemic excuses this lame Lord of the Flies rip-off. The first problem is that the world apparently has the technology to locate a new Earth and organize a colinizing mission in 2063. Sure, its 2021 now and only Amazon can get a package into space with any efficiency but in forty more years we can embark on an 86 year space mission. Sure. I couldn't get a door latch for my minivan in less than a month from China but Colin Ferrel can get a bunch of space millenials into deep space lickety split. The pace of this movie is completely wrecked. The main prick of the movie goes from member of the crew, to suspicious, to rebellious in the first seven minutes of the movie for apparently self evident reasons. Apparently 18 years of space schooling didn't quite take. I think Colin Ferrel can safely pack up that teacher of the year mug. Then we get 80 minutes of angsty, brooding rape faces. The future of humanity is supposedly at stake and I was openly rooting for all of them to get sucked into a black hole. TRY INSTEAD: High-Life.

11. Martyrs (2008) - This movie had all the makings of a nice little B grade revenge/slasher/psycho horror flick and then everything went straight to hell. It seemed like about 50 minutes into the movie they realized they ran out of script and needed something to fill the last 40 minutes. Then some French jackass came up with the idea to brutally beat a young girl for 30 minutes, skin her alive for 5, then use the last five minutes to try and justify that with a ton of psuedo-religous nut-jobbery. I don't consider myself a lightweight when it comes to violent movies but this is just offensive how little the movie cares about women, runaways, mental health issues, religion, the audience and basic human decency. You just can't do these things without any justification for it. This movie has negative justification. It lacks the lighthearted comedy you find in Hostel movies. I think the senselessness of this movie compares to a movie like Captivity but that's just a guess because I'll never watch that abomination. TRY INSTEAD: Why don't you turn off the Netflix for a while and just hug your kids for once.

10. Alyce Kills (2011) - When a movie revolves itself around a smattering of lesbian sex scenes followed by a drug fueled descent into madness, the bar for success is set so low it's practically on the ground. How can you screw up such a simple formula? How about long drawn out monologues about Enron? That's a good start. How about going 65 minutes, in a 95 minute movie, without a killing? Yep. I'm convinced the director forgot the movie was supposed to be a horror until the last day of shooting where he just killed whatever actor happened to be on set. More problems: the fact that the moral compass of the movie is a strung out dealer who trades sex for heroin; the movie ends so abruptly that the editor must've had a stroke mid-edit and nobody bothered to finish it; and the biggest sin of all, most of it was just boring. TRY INSTEAD: Excision (2012), The Loved Ones (2009); Breathless (2012).

9. Midnight in Paris (2011) - This franco-masturbatory pile of self indulgent excrement must have been underwritten by the French Chamber of Commerce. I realize that Woody Allen has turned his neurotic stalking from NYC to Europe but this is ridiculous. It's one thing to be nostalgic for the past but to be nostalgic for a past that never existed is pathetic. I refuse to believe that Owen Wilson would find the magic wormhole that allowed him to travel back in time just so he can get Hemmingway to give him notes on his crappy book. I also refuse to believe that the Rachel McAdams character exists in real life. Women this bitchy yet still desired only exist in movies so that we feel sorry for a lead character that we would otherwise wish a horrible, horrible death on. Not this time Woody. TRY INSTEAD: Un Prophete (2009); OSS 117: Lost in Rio (2009); OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies (2006).

8. What Dreams May Come (1998) - Sweet Jesus what a mess. Whatever hope this movie had was quickly destroyed in a massive bout of overacting and scenery chewing by Robin Williams and Cuba Gooding Jr. right before he made that movie with Horatio Sanz on the gay cruise. The real crime here though is that not only did they make a god awful movie (pun intended), they obliterated the memory of a pretty readable book. And seriously, Max von Sydow should just pretend to be dead next time Patch Adams comes callin'. TRY INSTEAD: Drag Me To Hell (2009).

7. The Baader-Meinhof Complex (2008) - A grueling, 2 hour plus communist/terrorist lovefest that could only be loved by all those jackasses wearing Che t-shirts. One good part was the nude loving German RAF terrorists trying to explain to the PLO that sex and revolution are one in the same. Bet they got a lot of mileage out of that one. TRY INSTEAD: Munich (2005).

6. Marie Antoinette (2006) - The mystery of Sofia Coppola continues. Avoid this movie at all costs. Gay porn would be a serious upgrade in both acting and plot. TRY INSTEAD: Girl With A Pearl Earring (2003).

5. Drillbit Taylor (2008) - Owen Wilson's veins didn't just spontaneously burst from massive pride and accomplishment you know. TRY INSTEAD: Battle Royale (2000).

4. The Fourth Kind (2009) - The movie starts with Milla Jovovich warning the audience that many of the scenes in the movie are real footage from police files and that the story is essentially true. That would in fact make the movie better if that weren't a complete lie. Not only did they make a fictional movie, they opened it with a fictional PSA to try and make you think it might be true. I already bought your ridiculous premise when I bought the ticket. Stop trying to trick me a second time. And then try making a good movie. TRY INSTEAD: Barbarella: Queen of the Galaxy (1968) or Predator (1987).

2 & 3. Lady in the Water/The Happening (2006/2008) - Maybe The Last Airbender will be M. Nights big comeback movie. What's that? Oh. TRY INSTEAD: The Abyss (1989)/The Signal (2007).

1. Sphere (1998) - If Sharon Stone plays a major role that doesn't include coked-out whoring or sex crazed murdering, there's a good chance that movie sucked. Exhibit A. TRY INSTEAD: Event Horizon (1997).

The Red Herring Exposed - A Clue Analysis (PART 9)

 THE EIGHTH MURDER - MR. BODDY

(Wadsworth, just prior to the reckoning)

The Situation: The supporting cast has fulfilled their roles yet the banshee wails still. After explaining to the cast the events of the entire evening, Wadsworth exposes himself (with ladies present) as the one who killed the Singing Telegram Girl and that he is in fact Mr. Boddy.

The Murder: The murder itself is straightforward. After Wadsworth nee Boddy gives his villain speech,  Mr. Green quick draws his service revolver and shoots Wadsworth directly in the heart. I think. Kind of unclear where the shot hits but Wadsworth dies almost instantly. Mr. Green reveals that he is an FBI Agent investigating the blackmail and that he is totally not gay and is going to celebrate solving the mystery by sleeping with his totally real wife. The religious beatnik makes his final appearance as he is actually the chief of the local police force, I assume. They call him chief and the cops there look like regular police and not other FBI Agents so I think Green had local backup on this one.

There are a number of problems that we'll get to in the loose threads portion of the series but one question to look at now is; "Why did Green shoot Wadsworth?"

Looking back at the evidence it seems like a pretty clear cut case of a bad shooting. At this point everybody in the house has been exposed as a murderer, been murdered or involved in a fairly elaborate blackmail scheme. It's true that Wadsworth had a gun but he has made it very clear that he is not going to kill anyone else at the party. The whole point of the night was to compromise the guests so that they can replace the cook, butler and Yvette as his informers so the blackmailing racket could continue. In addition to Wadsworth's lack of motivation, Mr. Green knows that the house is surrounded by police. Had Green simply waited and continued his ruse, they would have stacked the bodies in the cellar, left quietly one at a time and been subsequently arrested as they left. In a movie about a series of murders, the justice delivered at the end, was in fact, just another murder.

Conclusion: Wadsworth is very much a Macbethian figure. He too is the protagonist of this theater yet is ultimately the baddy. Also, Wadsworth only realizes at the very end that he has confused the message of the apparitions and that Macduff has stormed the gates and is approaching. Jonathan Lynn should've had Green cut off Wadsworth's head at the end. At least as an alternate ending.

Tortured historical metaphors aside, Wadsworth is ultimately an unimpressive mastermind. The plan itself is bizarre. Killing of proven informers just to replace them with people already rung out and on the hook? Why not keep both? Even if you accept the notion that the old informers had to be killed off to allow the Next Generation of informers to thrive, what kind of Umbrella Corp level nonsense is this? The Umbrella Corp for those not in the know is the evil corporation that unleashed the T-Virus on Raccoon City and other places in the Resident Evil oeuvre. The unanswered question in those games is how unleashing a virus that turns people into uncontrollable killing machines that spread the virus independently has any military application that couldn't be better achieved through a smart bomb, drone, robot soldier or just about anything else the military already has. For Wadsworth the question is how creating a tense pressure cooker situation that you hope will explode into chaos that will conveniently kill only the people you want is a better idea than hiring a hitman? Or killing them yourself? The explanations I thought of don't hold water. Getting the guests to kill the informers could potentially give Wadsworth more leverage over these people to continue the blackmail. But they're already being blackmailed effectively. No more leverage is needed, you run the risk of just making them desperate. Second, Wadsworth could've gotten the guests to do the killing so that he could keep his hands clean of any actual killing or hiring of hitmen. He blew that though when he stupidly killed the Telegram Girl. No matter how you look at it, the plan was odd.

Up Next:
Loose threads. Who was Mr. Green, the J. Edgar Hoover call and the beatnik interruption.

Recap:
Wadsworth: 1 murder
Peacock: 1 murder
Green: 1 murder
White: 1 murder
Mustard: 1 murder
Scarlett: 1 murder
Plum: 1 murder

Mr. Boddy: dead

The Cook: dead

Yvette: dead

Stranded Motorist: dead

Off Duty Cop: dead

Singing Telegram Girl: dead

Wadsworth: dead

My 8-Bit Quarantine: Sonic Colors

While a cursory glance at the news would suggest that the COVID pandemic and resulting quarantine have resulted in a chaotic world with no mooring in reality or decency, my own personal experience during this period has been one of profound dullness and boredom. I suspect that is a feeling shared by a vast majority of people.

One positive development though has been my son getting old enough to get into video games in a real way. With Nintendo Switch unavailable for the vast majority of this time our journey into gaming would have to suffice with an ancient Gamecube, Wii and still pretty relevant PS3. This series will review the games we have managed to complete this lost summer and we start with the first Ebay bargain I was able to locate; Sonic Colors on the Wii.

My son immediately loved Sonic as a character and looking back on it now I wish that we hadn't started with this particular game. Having played a few Sonic games lately, Colors is far and away the best one and every subsequent voyage into Sonic Teams blighted hellscape delivered slightly diminishing returns. Or significantly diminished returns. Like when the X-Files lost Mulder and Sculley and had to make do with Robert Patrick and Annabeth Gish. 

The plot is the nonsensical pap the comprises all Sonic games. Dr. Robotnik is doing evil things for "reasons", Sonic and Tails have to fight him for "other reasons" and after four million destroyed robots and five million horrific puns, Sonic does a backflip, calls you a cool dude, then gives you a C- grade because you missed a red star ring that only a Ritalin fueled uber millennial could possibly have gotten to on the first run. All standard items on the Sonic greatest hits album.

So why the positive review? Generally speaking because the game is actually playable. My son is six and he was able to navigate most of the levels, figure out the puzzles and switches and, shockingly, he was able to also learn and successfully implement the various powers and abilities of the various "colors". And he was completely happy the entire time. 

That's a significant upgrade over most Sonic games. The ones I've seen have a never ending cast of supporting characters that exist for no other reason than to diversify the Sonic cosplay and furry conventions. The "colors" in this game are aliens who you are trying to save from Eggmans plan to use them as energy in a Matrixesque world but without providing them any kind of computer generated alternate reality. They have no personality to speak of though, they simply power Sonic up in a variety of ways that help him complete the levels. More importantly, they don't talk.

The other improvement is the gameplay physics. As I said, a six year old was able to manage the controls. That is a significant achievement considering the horrific physics in other Sonic games that make running, jumping, grabbing, etc. nearly impossible. The always present problem of Sonic moving too fast to navigate the world without dying constantly or running face first into walls was eliminated for the most part. And the grading system, long a device to shame you for playing such horrific games, is actually fair and provides motivation to replay the levels, do the side quests, find the red stars and unleash Super Sonic upon the world. The limited lives system was also done away with, I think. If it wasn't, its impact was minimized to the point of not noticing the way you do in some of Sonic's other rage inducing games.

All told, this was a great game to play with a kid, during a quarantine, without access to modern level consoles or PC games. That's meant to be complimentary. Combine that with a Jim Carrey/James Marsden Sonic movie that was far better than it had any right to be and its hard to imagine a better start to the quarantine. I was able to spend more quality time with my son in those first few weeks than I did with any other kid in their whole lives. Such innocent days those were. The school break was just one long spring break, all the Sonic content was competent and the days were filled with joyful laughter from a new gamer who delighted in chili dogs and running around the yard with his arms behind him like his new hero did. I think of those days fondly as the summer optimism fades into the chill of the fall, the world burns nightly and I struggle to understand why in the hell a game that requires moving a were-hog through tight turns also incorporates a double tap run function.

But that's for another day.

GRADE: B-

Oakland Raiders 2019 Year in Review - Offense

Well it was certainly unexpectedly pleasant to be playing a meaningful game all the way in week 17! The joy of that simple fact makes me nearly forget what an absolute shit show that last game in Denver actually was. I swear if I see Carr throw the ball straight into the ground on fourth down again I might just start giving the side eye to guys like Jameis Winston and Josh Rosen. Let's move on to the unit-by-unit review before I spoil anything.

QB= C-. Glennon sucks, Petermen sucks, Connor Cook sucks, Don Hollas sucks, Kizer sucks, Hostetler rocks, but that's all irrelevant. The one thing I expected to find out this year was what the deal with Carr is. With Antonio Brown, Ty Williams, Waller, etc. in the mix we could finally judge Carr accurately instead of blaming his woes on a bad supporting cast. Then AB flaked, Williams got hurt and suddenly Hunter Renfrow was the best WR in the building. Until he too got hurt. I think we figured Carr out anyway though and I'm afraid we're squarely in the Dalton zone. He's not good enough to win with but he's not bad enough to just dump without a plan. The problem is that he is far above average on the short to medium passing game. He will not though, throw deep, extend plays with his legs or improvise at all. If the play gets out of whack somehow he just spikes the ball wherever he is on the field. If he feels pressure, spike. WR lined up wrong, spike. He has to scramble, spike. First down, fourth down, right before half, last play of the game, SPIKE. He just has no gunslinger in him at all. Infuriating. Despite all of that though, with a really good running game and a absolute disaster on defense, they were winning. And the ship didn't fall apart until injuries on the defense remove whatever playmaking ability they had. If he had a great running game and an average defense, they would probably be Wild Card contenders but nothing more. I think the only way the team should move on is if they draft one and can benefit from the cheap contract. No Winston, Fitzmagic or Brady types.

RB= A+. Hey, this unit looks good! Just run it back again. Who knows, maybe even Crowell gets back and contributes. Who knows.

WR= D. Yikes. Injuries to Williams, Renfrow and the exit of Antonio Brown left this unit a mess. Williams looked pretty good when he was playing but he's not a number one guy. Renfrow is a great slot guy maybe but also not the guy. Even if Carr could or would throw deep, there wouldn't be anyone down there to catch it. This desperately needs upgrading with speed and more speed.

TE= A. Holy shit another winner. Waller looks like the real deal and Foster Moreau looks pretty good too! This could be a poor man's Gronk/Hernandez minus all the murder. When defenses realized that Carr was just going to go short all the time, this unit suffered as the LB's and S's just ignored the receivers and tried to stop these guys. Without an upgrade at WR, it'll happen again.

OL= B. Pretty good, all things considered. Miller was quite a bit better than last year, Trent Brown was as good as advertised, Hudson was Hudson and even Incognito was pretty good. Especially run blocking. Depth and age are a problem though. When Brown, Incognito or Jackson got hurt the replacements were terrifying. It also seems really hard to believe that Incognito can stay playing well and out of trouble for a whole nother year. Should be at least decent going forward. It better be since running the ball is the factor that team success hinges on, entirely.

Coaching - I have no idea what compels Gruden to do what he does. They run the ball on approximately 107% of the time on first down. Short pass on 2nd, incomplete on 3rd. Like clockwork. This is the most damning critique of Carr in my opinion. Gruden doesn't trust him or the receivers at all. And maybe he shouldn't. Makes me very nervous about this offseason though and the possibility of watching Jordan Love start the first game in Vegas. I'd still rather have him then some of these other playoff coaches who seem to have no comprehension of basic space and time.

Next up, the Defense. AHHHHHH!

The Red Herring Exposed - A Clue Analysis (PART 8)

THE SEVENTH MURDER - THE SINGING TELEGRAM GIRL

The Situation:
The final murder takes place near simultaneously with the previous two. The group is split into pairs and are searching the house, Ms. White turns off the power. Chaos ensures.

The Murder:
We get almost nothing to chew on about this murder. In the darkness, the doorbell rings, is answered and the poor telegramist is gunned down. We find out during the subsequent investigation by the group that the girl was the one who had an affair with Prof. Plum, cost him his practice and then informed on him to Wadsworth.

This murder breaks the pattern and to some extent the logic of the movie. The setup of the whole film is that each game piece character kills the person responsible for their blackmailing troubles. By this logic, Prof. Plum should be the one to kill the Singing Telegram Girl. Yet the setup of the movie makes this impossible. All of the other victims existed in the house for the entirety of the movie. Long enough for each killer to get over the shock of seeing their blackmailer and accomplice and then try and put together a murder plan. In this case, Prof. Plum isn't even 100% sure the girl is informing on him, he only suspects. He probably would've figured it out had she been there the whole time but that didn't happen. At no point can he possibly know that she is even coming, let alone make a plan to kill her. When she arrives during the power outage, Prof. Plum is in the basement with Mrs. Peacock and the gun is strewn on the hallway floor. Impossible that he can get upstairs, figure out who is at the door, find the gun, take the shot and return to the basement. No, Plum's murder was spent on Mr. Boddy.

So instead of Prof. Plum logically killing his nemesis, the duty falls to Wadsworth. In one respect that makes sense. Like all the other visitors that have been killed, the Singing Telegram Girl was brought to the house by Wadsworth. Only he knew about it, so he could be the only one who developed a plan to kill her. The question though is why? All during the movie Wadsworth has done nothing proactive to ensure that the group killed their informers. Aside from instructing Mr. Boddy to bring all the weapons, he essentially let the rest of the cast determine how the events played out. The main goals of this passive stance was to allow the game pieces to do all the killing, leaving Wadsworth with no blood on his hands, no troublesome informers left and more information with which to blackmail the group. Killing the Singing Telegram Girl ruins all of that though. Suddenly he himself is wrapped up in a mass murder house, just as guilty as the rest. It damages his ability to blackmail the group as he no longer has informers to their government dirt and they have equal dirt on Wadsworth as a murderer. Wadsworth has ultimately weakened his position.

This murder also adds to the general chaos of the last murder scene. As we know now, during the house searching scene, Plum and Peacock were in the basement and out of the action entirely. Mustard and Scarlett were on the main level, separated. White and Wadsworth were on the second floor, separated and Green and Yvette were in the attic. As they groups were searching, Ms. White goes down to the main level and turns off the power. Then, Wadsworth and Yvette go to the main level as well. So now we have Mustard, Scarlett, White, Wadsworth, Yvette, and the Off-Duty Policeman are on the main level and the Telegram Girl is on the front step. Additionally, Scarlett and White have to get their weapons from the same cabinet while Wadsworth has to get the gun, in the dark, from the mess in the front hall which is in plain sight for everyone. Weapons acquired, Scarlett has to get to the library, White has to get to the billiards room, Wadsworth has to stand in front of the door waiting for the bell to ring and all of them have to do this without being seen by each other or the wayward Col. Mustard who is doing something. Maybe just hiding somewhere. Even in the dark, that is a lot of movement by a lot of people in relatively short time and confined spaces. It also assumes that Mr. Green, who we know is an FBI agent investigating the blackmail, is unaware or has chosen to do nothing about the fact that Yvette has split from him. The attic didn't look huge so its very hard to believe he was fooled in any way. Ultimately Green played no role in the final burst of action.

Conclusion:
Like Yvette, the Singing Telegram Girl just had to be killed so that the movie could get to the fun part. The lack of a cohesive plan by Wadsworth finally reaches its apex as he is forced to ruin his own plan by killing the Telegram girl. I understand that the movie needed Wadsworth to do something evil so that there could be the big shocking reveal at the end that he was actually Mr. Boddy. If they couldn't figure out a way for Prof. Plum to kill the Telegram Girl, they should have left her out completely. In that situation, all six game characters would have killed someone and Wadsworth could have revealed his true identity some other way and left his master plan intact. Of course, that would leave Wadsworth with one informant left operating in the world. Maybe they should have just found a way to get Plum's informer into the house and had him kill 2 people. Would've made more sense.

Up next:
Murder #8, the final overall death. No mystery but interesting in some ways.

Up Later:
The phone call from J. Edgar Hoover and the interruption from the beatnik have to be addressed but only after the main mystery has been unraveled. Soon.

Recap:
Wadsworth: 1 murders
Peacock: 1 murder
Green: 0 murders
White: 1 murders
Mustard: 1 murders
Scarlett: 1 murders
Plum: 1 murder

Mr. Boddy: dead
The Cook: dead
Yvette: dead
Stranded Motorist: dead
Off Duty Cop: dead
Singing Telegram Girl: dead

The Red Herring Exposed - A Clue Analysis (PART 7)

THE SIXTH MURDER - YVETTE

The Situation:
Literally speaking, Yvette was killed before the Off-Duty Policeman but the story of the movie followed the policeman so I did him first. Either way, as discussed in Part 6, both murders happen nearly simultaneously. To recap, the group has split up and is searching the house in pairs. Yvette is all the way up in the attic with the clandestine FBI agent Mr. Green. The lights go out and the murder is afoot!

The Murder:
Yvette occupies unique space in this movie. On one hand, she is an informant like the cook or motorist which lines the hands of fate against her survival. On the other hand, she also acts as a member of the main cast. There are 6 game pieces characters plus Wadsworth. You need one more character to balance out the group for when they split up in pairs and Yvette was the choice. Because this is Hollywood and this was a comedy made in the 80's, I'm going to assume that the reason they kept Colleen Camp around for as long as possible are self evident.

Yvette also has more connections to other people than anyone in the movie except Wadsworth. She works for Wadsworth, she works for Ms. Scarlett, she serviced Col. Mustard for Ms. Scarlett and she had an affair with Ms. White's husband which led to the murder for which Ms. White is being blackmailed. All of these connections help explain why her murder makes utterly no sense.

When the lights go out, Yvette heads back down to the main level. Somehow without Super G-Man Green noticing. She returns to the billiards room and has a perplexing conversation. This is directly from the script:

"99 -- INT. GROUND FLOOR--BILLIARD ROOM -- 99

Yvette enters quietly.

An off-screen voice can be heard.
It can't be identified, even as being male or female.
The first line sounds male, the second female.

VOICE
Shut the door.
Did anyone recognize you?

Suddenly, Yvette's French accent is gone.

YVETTE
They must have. And not just my face.
They know every inch of my body.
And they're not the only ones . . .

A noose flies onto Yvette's neck!

YVETTE
(gasping)
It's you!"

And so ends the tale of the tragic maid, prostitute spy. We know the power outage was caused by Ms. White. And we also know that Ms. White was not who Yvette was expecting to see. So who was she expecting to see? And how did they plan to meet in the billiards room at that point? Whoever she thought she was meeting couldn't have known about Ms. White's actions, so what was the original plan to get all the way from the attic back to the billiards room with out anyone noticing? In her mind, she had to get away from Mr. Green, then past White and Wadsworth and then avoid Mustard/Scarlett on the main level to get to the billiards room unobserved.

The only logical explanation was that Yvette was going to meet Ms. Scarlett or Wadsworth. I would guess Scarlett since she was already on that level of the house. Had she wanted to meet Wadsworth she only would have had to go down one level and Wadsworth had already split from Ms. White. Of course we know that both White and Wadsworth had snuck to the main level at that point but Yvette wouldn't know that. The only problem with either explanation is that the conversation makes no sense. Ms. Scarlett and Wadsworth would have no reason to ask if anyone recognized Yvette. It was made very clear to everyone that Yvette knew Ms. White at the very beginning and that Scarlett and Mustard knew each other. During the examination of the film and later during the endings, it was exposed that the pics were of Yvette and Mustard in flagrante delicto. Even the cop recognized Yvette in front of everybody. Of all the mysteries in the movie, what Yvette was up to isn't one of them. Everyone recognized her essentially. So that beginning question is nonsense. Yvettes answer is equally nonsensical. She essentially admits that everyone knows who she is. Then she admits that some of them have slept with her. She then mysteriously hints that that there is another person, maybe who she thought she was talking to(?), also knew "every inch of her body." Also, the French accent is gone. This scenario only points to some situation where Yvette thinks she is talking to someone outside the people in the movie that we already know. An outside police presence, J. Edgar Hoover perhaps? She is then surprised to find out that she has been talking to Ms. White instead of the mystery contact and is killed. The problem is, we never get an ounce of evidence as to why she did what she did. Here are all the people in the movie that she could have been trying to see:

Mr. Boddy - dead
Cook - dead
Stranded Motorist - dead
Off-Duty Policeman - possible that Yvette might have been trying to talk to him. He also worked for Scarlett in service of the brothel. But everyone knew he was in the library and Yvette went to the billiards room.
Singing Telegram Girl - not arrived
Wadsworth - perhaps but the location and conversation make no sense.
Scarlett - perhaps, location is good, conversation makes no sense.
Mustard - no, he might want to kill Yvette himself and that conversation wouldn't make sense. Yvette would know better than to try and meet him privately when she helped blackmail him.
Peacock - no, wrong location, no connections, no reason to meet.
Plum - no, wrong location, no connection, no reason to meet.
Green - This might have made sense, that Yvette was secretly working for the FBI and needed to check in with Green. Bu they were paired together all the way in the attic and could have talked in private all they wanted.
White - She never would have tried to meet her in private, same reasons as Mustard.
Police Chief - the beatnik chief hasn't arrived yet and even if he had, he wasn't in the house.

That's every character in the movie. Yvette's intended contact is a mystery and remains so. It doesn't make sense in the context of the movie. The movie needed to get rid of Yvette so that only the game pieces would be left at the end having murdered someone. This contrived plot thread was what they came up with.

That brings us to the nonsensical Ms. White plan. Apparently, she turned off the power, got the rope and then went to the billiards room to wait for Yvette. We know that's how it went because White was in the room when Yvette arrived. So how did White know that Yvette would return to the billiards room given the opportunity to do so secretly? No idea. We've already determined that Yvettes motivation for going downstairs is unknowable in the context of the film. If we can't know, then White can't either. And there is no other reason for Ms. White to go downstairs for a weapon. Mr. Boddy is already dead and none of the other people alive can inform on her. Had Ms. White went downstairs, got the rope and then, as she was heading to the attic to kill Yvette, noticed that Yvette had come downstairs, she could have snuck up behind Yvette to strangle her. That would have made some sense. As it stands, Ms. White pretending to be Yvette's mystery contact to lure Yvette into the billiards room is lacking in believeability. That conversation still makes no sense, Yvette dropping the accent makes no sense and Ms. White's knowledge of what Yvette was doing makes no sense. Pretty sloppy murder that they quickly slip into the part of the movie mostly dedicated to the Off-Duty Policeman. Yvette gets only slightly more screen time in death as the Singing Telegram Girl.

Once again, Wadsworth, the supposed mastermind of this movie, is not participating in the events at all. His lack of involvement becomes apparent soon.

Conclusion:
The movie knows that it's racing towards the part where Tim Curry gets to do 30 minutes of slapstick exposition and it doesn't want to waste anymore time getting there. The cops murder was the last bit of movie that provides clues that the audience could theoretically follow. Yvette and the Telegram girl (discussed next) just need to be killed so the final act can begin. Colleen Camp was a bigger part of the movie so they give her some extra, nonsensical, dialogue and off she goes.

Up next:
Murder #7, the final mysterious death.

Up Later:
The phone call from J. Edgar Hoover and the interruption from the beatnik have to be addressed but only after the main mystery has been unraveled. Soon.

Recap:
Wadsworth: 0 murders
Peacock: 1 murder
Green: 0 murders
White: 1 murders
Mustard: 1 murders
Scarlett: 1 murders
Plum: 1 murder

Mr. Boddy: dead
The Cook: dead
Yvette: dead
Stranded Motorist: dead
Off Duty Cop: dead
Singing Telegram Girl: about to ring her last doorbell

The Red Herring Exposed - A Clue Analysis (PART 6)

THE FIFTH MURDER - THE OFF-DUTY POLICEMAN

The Situation:
The group has split up into pairs and has begun searching the house. During this search Col. Mustard separates from Ms. Scarlett and kills the stranded motorist. The secret passage is also revealed. Outside the house we see a cop inspect the Stranded Motorists car. Back inside the house, Yvette has shot open the door that had been trapping Mustard/Scarlett in with the dead body. Col. Mustard begins to verbally accompany Yvette for nearly killing him. The chandelier rope finally breaks from having been shot and the chandelier crashes to the ground, scaring the group. As the group deals with the crash and discusses how the weapon cabinet could have been opened, the doorbell rings. the cop has arrived to check if the Stranded Motorist had been by.

The Murder:
This murder gets padded out quite a bit. I assume thats so the movie could actually be movie length instead of a special edition episode of Mr. Bean. Mr. Green, at his mysterious best, opens the door as he has nothing to hide, then immediately slams the door. Then when the other guests try to deny the motorist was there, Green informs him that he was in fact there. Wadsworth then sends him off to the library where he is locked in. He seems to recognize Yvette. The group then decides to clean up the broken glass (odd) when the phone rings and the cop answers (odder) and reveals that it was J. Edgar Hoover on the phone (oddest). While Wadsworth handles the Hoover call, Mr. Green shows the cop around and the rest of the group stages the drunken party with the corpses of previous victims. The open-minded cop seems satisfied with the ruse and again asks to use the phone. He is again locked in the library.

The group then decides to finish the search despite the cops presence. The pairs return to their previous floors. The kitchen passage is discovered. The power is then cut and 3 people get killed, including our dear cop. In the darkness, the cop suffers essentially the same fate as the Stranded Motorist. The door unlocks and slowly opens, a gloved hand holding a pipe approaches and clubs the Policeman to death. Oddly enough, the cop was also actually calling someone and telling them how scared he was and was about to tell them where he was when he was killed. After two other killings, the lights return and the group surveys the carnage.

We know from both the A and C ending that Mrs. Scarlett killed the Policeman during the power outage caused by Ms. White. The reasoning makes sense in that Scarlett killed the Policeman for informing on her brothel activities. The footage in the movie generally supports the explanation given although not much of it is shown with the lights out. I do question some of the logistics though. Ms. Scarlett was already on the main level with Col. Mustard and we saw from their footage that they had already searched everything and were re-searching some rooms, after they discovered the kitchen passage. We don't see how Scarlett separated from Mustard but we do know that at the same time that Scarlett was killing the Policeman, both Ms. White and Wadsworth were coming down the stairs to kill victims 6 and 7 while Yvette was coming down two levels from the attic. Essentially there were 3 murders taking place at once, on the same floor, involving 6 people, with Col. Mustard wandering around. Two of those people had to return to the top floor as well before the lights were thrown back on. That's a lot of people in a small space to not bump into each other at all.

Once again though we have to return to the motivations and plans of the characters. The behavior of the policeman makes no sense. He was called to the house by Wadsworth for some reason. Perhaps he was given the cover story of investigating the found car on the road belonging to the stranded motorist. I originally thought that maybe the Policeman was the most realistic of the victims as he recognized Yvette and was suspicious of what was going on in the house. This would make sense if he was invited by Wadsworth but found the situation was different than he expected. I don't think that's the case though as the cop really starts investigating whats going on in the house. He should know for certain that something is going on with the criminal conspiracy that he is a part of. He should be trying to leave or get in contact with Wadsworth. Instead, he's searching rooms, threatening to be let out and answering the phone when it rings. He even investigated the Stranded Motorists car outside the house. Just like the stranded motorist, he spent his last moments on earth calling some stranger to express his misgivings about what was going on. No, his actions only make sense in the context of him being a real off duty police officer investigating an abandoned car. Any sensible person, especially with police training, would realize something was off when the door opened and he saw his boss, one of his boss's prostitutes and the person he was informing on his boss to all together. You don't question whether you know the prostitute and ignore the main players.

Also, Wadsworth has no plan whatsoever here. Wadsworth allows the members of the gathering to be scattered randomly around the house at the direction of Col. Mustard. This makes it infinitely more difficult for each new victim to be killed. Scarlett is on the first floor and ready to deal with the cop but, as we will see in our discussion of the next 2 victims, Ms. White, Yvette, Prof. Plum and Wadsworth are all completely out of position. Had the drawing of straws gone differently then Ms. Scarlett could easily have been in the attic or paired with someone more intellectually resilient than Col. Mustard. Had either of those things happened, Scarlett probably doesn't get near the cop. It also depended entirely on the rogue actions of Ms. White settling a personal vendetta that the limited opportunity presented itself. During this sequence, Wadsworth is a bystander whose bad planning ultimately get him involved in the final action, probably against his desires.

Conclusion:
Through a very narrow looking glass the Scarlett killing of the Off-Duty Policeman is fine. The power went out, she was close to the victim and she took her chance to take him out. All well and good. The scene as a whole though, beginning with the Policeman's arrival and ending with the discovery of the Singing Telegram Girl, is pure nonsense. We shall see more why in the next two parts.

Up Next:
Murder #6, technically happened before murder #5 but not from a storytelling perspective.

Up Later:
The phone call from J. Edgar Hoover and the interruption from the beatnik have to be addressed but only after the main mystery has been unraveled.

Recap:
Wadsworth: 0 murders
Peacock: 1 murder
Green: 0 murders
White: 0 murders
Mustard: 1 murders
Scarlett: 1 murders
Plum: 1 murder

Mr. Boddy: dead
The Cook: dead
Yvette: dead but awaiting discovery
Stranded Motorist: dead
Off Duty Cop: dead
Singing Telegram Girl: about to ring her last doorbell