At some point, my horror movie podcast will come across a stretch of movies I have seen, all in a row. Or I’ll catch up to them, but that actually seems less likely. Anyway, “this” week, they are talking about Ticks, a movie which I have surely heard of, but had forgotten existed. Also, I definitely haven’t heard of it since I became aware of who Seth Green was. It predates his popularity, post-dates Peter Scolari’s[1], and falls right in the center of Carlton’s, though he played about as far against type as you can get from that role.

Anyway, Peter Scolari leads a band of misfit kids and his girlfriend for some reason out of Los Angeles and into the woods, so they can camp and, I don’t know what exactly. Get counseling? Have all of their problems solved by The Land? Run into evil pot farmers[2] who are spraying their crops with liquid steroids to improve crop production and growth speed, with who can even begin to guess what unintended consequences? The point is, they’re there, and nerdy Seth Green is making some moves on Scolari’s daughter (but then again she had the same “maybe I’m into this” look in her eyes after the silent girl caught a fish, so I may have who was making what moves backward), and Carlton is acting all tough and hanging out with his dog, and the “Do I look Mexican?” kid and his blonde girlfriend are catching some rays, and basically everything is fine for the entire movie, with a zero percent of, say, Clint Howard and a bunch of rubber arachnids ruining their weekend.

Here’s the problem, though. I’ve made that movie sound good, because how could that movie not sound good? I’ll tell you how, and yes with spoilers, but it’s for your own good. The way to ruin that movie, full of cheap monsters and squooshy special effects though it be, is by killing essentially nobody.

I’ll give you one guess who they did kill, which makes my complaint even stronger.

It’s a pity, because on paper it should have been so much better than this. I mean, okay, it’s still hilariously bad. It’s just, when the credits roll, your focus is on bad instead of hilarious.

[1] Just imagine. In 1993 Peter Scolari made Ticks, the same year for which Tom Hanks would win the first of his two back-to-back Oscars. That is a man who fame was unkind to.
[2] Dear people of the future: 30 years ago when Ticks was made, not only was marijuana illegal everywhere except maybe Amsterdam, but people who grew and distributed it were generally considered villainous. I know it’s hard to credit this in today’s semi-permissive United States, but it’s true!