In which V reviews another requested film, and for approximately 90 minutes life becomes meaningless and almost painful.

The latest requested film is Intermedio. Ironically, I actually considered renting this a few times. It actually sounded kind of intriguing. But then I noticed it was coming on the Sci-Fi Channel, which is known for airing utter crap. Intermedio is, indeed, utter crap.

You start out with a couple of asshole guys going into a series of caves/tunnels via a trap door. Presumably this is in Mexico somewhere, and presumably they are on some kind of drug run. They have left two little kids in the car. Because obviously you take the toddlers along when you go on your Mexican drug runs. That's called "parenting".

While they're in the tunnels, some old coot with a necklace full of blood drops some of that blood on the ground. Suddenly these weird CGI ghost things appear and kill the two asshole guys. INTERMEDIO!

Cut to 18 years later. A group of young trailer-trash people are discussing their new handgun. One of them is a random big-boobed slut. One of them is that kid from Terminator 2. And one of them is Tara The Dead Lesbian Witch From Buffy The Vampire Slayer. This is not Quality. Their hyperactive friend shows up. He wants to go into the Mexican Tunnels to get 200 pounds of pot. The trailer-trash kids spend a lot of time discussing the moral implications of this, and eventually decide to go along with it because "after all, it's not cocaine." Niiiice.

But wait! There's more! OMG it turns out that the two asshole guys from the start are the dads of two of the trailer kids. The kids want to earn some serious drug money, but also are motivated by a need to know what happened to their dads. This is deep.

They drive to Mexico. They are about to go into the hole when Hyperactive Friend says, out of freakin' nowhere, "they say if you catch a drop of a dead man's blood before it hits the ground, you get eternal protection!" Um. Okay. Thanks for that tidbit. I hate it when horror films make up their own convoluted mythology like that. Hyperactive then adds, "you can even control the dead!" K, thx again. I will keep that in mind, as you have just employed an awkward narrative device.

Once they get inside the cave, Hyperactive feels compelled to point out that some crazy old man killed his son down in the tunnels some years back. And then he tells them about the Intermedio who are stuck between life and death and want to kill anyone who comes into the cave. THANKS AGAIN, JACKHOLE. Okay readers, just hypothetically, let's say you are about to go cave exploring with friends. One of your friends starts babbling about a dead man's blood and controlling the dead, and someone being murdered in that very cave, and probably the Intermedio will kill you. Do you stick around? Or do you say "thanks for the spelunking invite, jackhole. But I think I'm going to take a pass because you're being FUCKING CREEPY."

See, I go for the second option. But the trailer-trash kids all stick around. But they spend a lot of time discussing the moral implications of all of this. Once they've been in the cave for about ten seconds, Lesbian Witch already manages to get Separated From The Group. She sticks her hand into some random hot spring and says "ow" just before her friends find her and scare the pee out of her. They all have a laugh about that, and then take some time out to further discuss the moral implications of being in the cave.

Elsewhere, a guy with a pickaxe is going around busting the lightbulbs that have been strung up inside the tunnels. Breaking lightbulbs! That's spooooky. No it's not.

Before too much longer, they meet up with their drug dealer contacts. Pickaxe Man is watching the whole thing go down, and is playing with his Magic Necklace. He drops some blood from it, and suddenly an Intermedio appears and kills one of the drug dealers by materializing a chain and shoving it through the drug dealer's eye. Does this make sense? NO. The four trailer-trash kids and the remaining drug dealer make a run for it, and then pause to discuss the moral implications of what has just happened.

Hyperactive Boy goes off on his own. He steps into a hole and starts yelling. Slut shows up just in time to see him get sucked through the hole and then the hole disappears. Hyperactive Boy ends up back at the start of the cave. Hey, doesn't that happen in Legend of Zelda sometimes? He tries to get out through the trap door, but it's blocked from the outside by the body of a dead Mexican guy.

Elsewhere, Terminator is seriously hamming it up for the camera. He is waving his arms around dramatically and shouting JESUS CHRIST! The plot deteriorates into lots of arguing and wandering around. Someone else needs to die soon, because these people are all pissing me off. Pickaxe Man drops some of his Magic Blood just in time, and Lesbian Witch gets killed by an Intermedio in another implausible fashion. This time, Intermedio materializes a circular saw blade and chops her in half. Her torso twitches around comically for a while before she dies. Nice.

Run run run. Hyperactive Boy gets caught by some hands that come out of the wall, but he gets away almost instantly. What's the point? They make it to something called a 'safe house', places where you can enter or leave the tunnels in case the police are after you. They're all happy for a while because they think they're getting away, but the door to the outside has been boarded up and padlocked. OMG! It's to keep the Intermedio from getting out!

Meanwhile, some mysterious boy is lurking around unseen.

Hyperactive Boy decides that this would be a good time to smoke some pot. Because, hey, that never got anyone killed in a horror film. GREAT IDEA, DUMBASS. Almost instantly he gets pickaxed in the back by Intermedio. At around the same time, Drug Dealer #2 gets his tongue ripped out by another Intermedio. Or maybe it's the same one, who can tell.

Just when you think it's all down to Terminator and Slut, Hyperactive Boy shows up badly hurt but alive. He is still all about smoking pot. He launches into some tedious diatribe about how he's misled them, he's the reincarnation of someone who saw the Intermedio kill a bunch of people 20 years ago. Also he knows he's dying and y'all should just go on, SAVE YOURSELVES, blah blah blah, leave me here to die. Yawn.

Just before I dozed off, Pickaxe Man drops some more Magic Blood and Hyperactive Boy dies for real. Terminator and Slut run away and end up locked inside a bedroom. There are copies of a newspaper clipping all over the wall about a young drug dealer kid who died in the tunnels like 30 years ago. OMG it's the kid who's been following them around. They break through the bedroom door and escape. They go through a crawlspace and end up in a Pit Full Of Bodies.

The dead kid shows up. He's nice. He shows them how to get out of the tunnels. They make it back to their car, but don't have the keys. They go to the house where they went down into the trap door to start with, and who should be there but Pickaxe Man. Since they never saw his face, they don't know that he's the one who's been sending the Intermedio after them and also trying to kill them with his pickaxe.

He acts all sympathetic and gives them a ride in his truck. He gives Slut a beer and starts talking to them about his son who died. He was a good kid who got mixed up in the wrong things and was "killed by sluts and junkies LIKE YOU!" He stabs Terminator in the leg with a really long nail, and meanwhile Slut has passed out from the poisoned beer that he gave her.

FLASHBACK! The son wasn't killed by drug dealers! He was killed by HIS OWN DAD for reasons that are totally unclear. Pickaxe Man kills his son and then steals the son's Magic Necklace. Maybe that was his motive, I dunno.

Anyway, Terminator and Slut end up back in the body pit. WILL THIS EVER END? They escape AGAIN. They meet up with the dead kid AGAIN. He shows them the way out AGAIN. They run into Pickaxe Man and Slut tells him that they met his dead son and that he's really nice. Pickaxe Man gets angry about that. He and Slut get into a fistfight. She takes away his Magic Necklace and gives it to a random Intermedio who may or may not be the ghost of her dad. The Intermedio breaks the necklace and eats the old man.

Slut and Terminator get away. They end up in a motel somewhere and it is implied that they have had sex. OMG it's OVER it's ALL OVER. They are going to go to Disney World now because that will be fun! But wait! Their dead friends are watching them from outside the window! They're Intermedios now! THIS WILL NEVER BE OVER.