Tiki (2006) from Tuna

Tiki is a monster/horror film released by Fred Olin Ray's Retromedia.

Amy Connelly (Joelene Smith) comes to the mainland from Hawaii to study drama at a small community college. The members of the "in crowd," who have been together since grade school, don't welcome her warmly, especially when she makes friends with the professor, and lands the lead in the class production of Pygmalion. Her classmates trick her into showing up nearly naked in the professor's bedroom, and when he doesn't greet her warmly, she has a seizure, and ends up in a coma.

That is when the horror film really begins. Her aunt arrives, and sics the dread Tiki on those who harassed her. The story is narrated by the one survivor.

Produced and directed by Ron Ford, it is a low budget, by-the-numbers monster film with a cast mostly taken from a junior college play, and filmed in four weekends in Spokane, Washington. It is marginally better than that makes it sound. It features breast exposure from two new faces, and it looks far batter than its budget would lead you to believe, so I'll call it a C on our scale, asking for your understanding that the grade means "watchable and competent for a low-budget monster film."

 

 

Trivia: why do they call it the "green-room"? (Written correctly with a hyphen, as per OED.)

Nobody knows (overview), although the term seems to have originated in the late 1600s. OED thinks it may be because of the original color of the room somewhere in some theater. That's logical enough, but the proof, if it ever existed, has been lost to history. The OED entry: "A room in a theatre provided for the accommodation of actors and actresses when not required on the stage, probably so called because it was originally painted green. To talk green-room: to talk theatrical gossip."

 

DVD INFO

  • Making-Of Featurette
  • Ron Ford Video Profile
  • Trailer

NUDITY REPORT

Joelene Smith shows breasts in the green-room when the professor rushes in without knocking.

Ashley Williamson-Payne shows breasts in a lesbo three-way before getting tiki'ed.

The Critics Vote ...

  • No reviews online

 

The People Vote ...

  • IMDb has never heard of this.
The meaning of the IMDb score: 7.5 usually indicates a level of excellence equivalent to about three and a half stars from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm watchability, comparable to approximately two and a half stars from the critics. The fives are generally not worthwhile unless they are really your kind of material, equivalent to about a two star rating from the critics, or a C- from our system. Films rated below five are generally awful even if you like that kind of film - this score is roughly equivalent to one and a half stars from the critics or a D on our scale. (Possibly even less, depending on just how far below five the rating is.

Our own guideline:

  • A means the movie is so good it will appeal to you even if you hate the genre.
  • B means the movie is not good enough to win you over if you hate the genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an open mind about this type of film. Any film rated B- or better is recommended for just about anyone. In order to rate at least a B-, a film should be both a critical and commercial success. Exceptions: (1) We will occasionally rate a film B- with good popular acceptance and bad reviews, if we believe the critics have severely underrated a film. (2) We may also assign a B- or better to a well-reviewed film which did not do well at the box office if we feel that the fault lay in the marketing of the film, and that the film might have been a hit if people had known about it. (Like, for example, The Waterdance.)
  • C+ means it has no crossover appeal, but will be considered excellent by people who enjoy this kind of movie. If this is your kind of movie, a C+ and an A are indistinguishable to you.
  • C means it is competent, but uninspired genre fare. People who like this kind of movie will think it satisfactory. Others probably will not.
  • C- indicates that it we found it to be a poor movie, but genre addicts find it watchable. Any film rated C- or better is recommended for fans of that type of film, but films with this rating should be approached with caution by mainstream audiences, who may find them incompetent or repulsive or both. If this is NOT your kind of movie, a C- and an E are indistinguishable to you.
  • D means you'll hate it even if you like the genre. We don't score films below C- that often, because we like movies and we think that most of them have at least a solid niche audience. Now that you know that, you should have serious reservations about any movie below C-. Films rated below C- generally have both bad reviews and poor popular acceptance.
  • E means that you'll hate it even if you love the genre.
  • F means that the film is not only unappealing across-the-board, but technically inept as well.

 

Based on this description, this film is a C, watchable and competent for a low-budget monster film.

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