Year released: 1979
THE CHARGE: Having no heart, but trying to make up for it with a liver and a couple of nice kidneys.
THE EVIDENCE: I've watched a lot of movies that the general viewing public would consider "bad". But I'm usually able to sit through even the worst of the worst just from the sheer awe that comes with the realization that this movie exists because numerous people dedicated a fair chunk of their lives, and invested a fair chunk of their money, to make it happen. I respect that kind of dedication, however misguided it may be. That being said, Spare Parts sorely tested the boundaries of both my respect and my patience.
Originally a German made-for-TV movie called Fleisch (German for "flesh"), Spare Parts focuses on a German exchange student named Monica attending Princeton University. Monica's just gotten married, and she and her new hubby are traveling to Las Cruces, New Mexico for their honeymoon. Because if there's anyplace in the world that embodies the wholesome spirit of young love and eternal dedication, it's Las Cruces.
Being young college kids, they don't have much money for a proper honeymoon. So they're thrilled to find a motel offering cheap rooms and free coffee. The fact that the walls are literally peeling off the building isn't much of a deterrent because, hey, free coffee! After a quickie consummation of their marriage, Monica is awestruck by the red New Mexico sunset and scoots out the back window of their room to run through the desert. Because if there's anything in the world that embodies the free post-coital spirit of wonder and adventure, it's potential rattlesnake bites.
As her hubby starts to follow her, an ambulance pulls up and a couple of paramedics force him into the back of the vehicle at gunpoint. They chase Monica as well but lose her when she hides behind some sagebrush about a foot tall. And when Monica returns to their motel room at nightfall, she finds that the room is empty and their car is gone. It was about that point that I realized my fingernails needed clipping.
Monica loved karaoke but could only sing "99 Luftballoons".
After a confrontation with the motel owner, the young fraulein flags down a passing semi and gets in the cab. She shares her story with the trucker, who finds it hard to swallow until he gets to a truck stop and an ambulance arrives shortly afterward. The trucker talks to the ambulance driver, who tells him they're looking for a junkie girl who just escaped from a hospital. It was about that point that I realized I hadn't checked my email all day.
The trucker and some of his buddies set up a trap where they catch the ambulance driver and get him to spill where Monica's husband has been taken. Monica and the trucker take the ambulance and, dressed as paramedics, infiltrate the facility where... oh man, my blinds really need to be dusted.
When the movie gets my attention back, it's revealed that young people are being kidnapped for the purpose of harvesting their organs to save the lives of wealthy terminally-ill patients. But it's OK because young people have no money and are generally a drain on society, or at least that how one of the doctors at the facility explains it. And there's apparently a patient in New York who... have I cleaned the cat's litter box lately?
The game of Twister turned ugly when Frank spun left foot blue.
You've probably guessed by now that Spare Parts had a difficult time holding my attention, and that would be an understatement. This movie was a slog to get through. At one point, I paused the DVD to check the time remaining on the film, assuming that I was approaching the end of its 104-minute running time. I was gobsmacked to see I still had over an hour left to go. The story moved at such a slow pace, I think it actually managed to reverse time at some point.
I thought that once the setting of the movie changed to New York, I'd be more interested in it since I grew up near the city at around the time the movie was made. And I did catch glimpses of some landmarks I remember well. (Silvercup!) But mostly, it made me mad. It made me mad because the movie culminates in a car chase between two ambulances. And I recognized the freeway that the car chase was filmed on. And that freeway was never, NEVER empty enough for two cockroaches to chase each other, much less a couple of ambulances. And I realized that the film makers had to get permission from the city to close down a very busy freeway to shoot their crappy chase scene for this crappy movie. And the fact that they were able to obtain this permission makes me realize that not only is there no justice in this world, but there may be no God either.
But the thing that astounds me most of all about this movie is that it's rated 6.1 stars out of 10 on imdb.com. 6.1 stars! It ranks higher than movies like Days of Thunder (5.9), Hostel (5.9), Indecent Proposal (5.8), Freddy vs Jason (5.8) and Twilight (5.2). There is no conceivable way that Spare Parts could be considered better than any of those movies. (OK, I'll give you Twilight - but just barely!)
THE VERDICT: Spare Parts is GUILTY of taking an interesting premise, deconstructing it, putting it back together and ending up with a lot of important-looking pieces left over, and then sweeping those pieces under the rug in the hope that no one will notice.
