Corona | Coming Attractions

We've all seen this kind of situation before: an actor, a director, someone who's cinematic work you're a fan of takes a job for a project that seemingly has no redeemable qualities to it. I call it "paying down the mortgage".

Really, there shouldn't be any shame when someone does it (with the caveat that they don't do it too often.) Actors have to eat too, y'know, and some of them have families to put through school and expensive escort bills to pay off every month. (Just ask Charlie Sheen why he's agreed to do a ninth season of Two and a Half Men for confirmation on that last reason.) A friend of mine once saw Corbin Bernsen, he of L.A. Law fame once, stop long enough on a direct-to-cable movie, film his scene and pick up his still warm half-finished cup of Starbucks that he walked on the set with. That takes skill, folks.

But I digress. The reason we're here today is to honor the lovely Felicia Day, best known for co-writing and starring in an internet cult show called The Guild. I've got nothing against Ms. Day, nor should you. Nevertheless, that can't be enough of a reason for me not to call her latest work, appearing in a straight to SyFy movie called Red, a mortgage payment of marginal entertainment value. I can't blame Felicia; she's just a hired gun. It's more the creators of Red that are responsible. Truly, a telling sign that this show, which is supposed to be about a family of werewolf hunters, is gonna suck came when I recognized no less than four instances where werewolf shots from 1981's The Howling are used in the Red trailer. If you freeze-frame the split-second worth of image showing one of Red's CG werwolves standing on a rooftop then you'll realize why the makers decided to pay up for the Howling filler material.

Folks, it doesn't look pretty. At least, not as pretty as Felicia.