Yoga Hosers (2016) Movie Review

Colleen C. and Colleen M., two best friends who spent most of their time being stuck at school or staying glued to their cellular phones, are begrudgingly stuck working during a boring, mundane evening at the Eh-2-Zed, which happens to be a convenience store located in Manitoba, Canada. Their store manager has run off for the weekend, which is all the more coincidental considering that one of the adolescents' parents is with her. Disgruntled, but not discouraged, the young women call up two male familiars, inviting them to their place of employment in the hopes that they can still party and have something that constitutes as fun. After the men arrive, an old evil begins to resurface, terrorizing our heroines. This particular menace? Nazi sausages that kill their victims by entering through their colons, all while shouting nonsensical German gibberish. The girls slowly unravel the origin behind these miniature threats, and it will remind them that paying attention in history class sometimes has benefits after all.

Story time:

When I was a relatively immature and underdeveloped young man, I had a rather questionable taste in cinema (there is a debate that I still bear this at the age of thirty). In particular, my main attraction seemed to be to flicks of, well, lesser quality. I'm comfortable enough at this stage in my life to confess that I willingly saw dreck such as Tomcats, Almost Heroes, and The Animal in theaters. However, my exposure to the works of Kevin Smith, an independent mind from a small town in New Jersey, changed that. He proved that a large budget and array of highly paid actors were not pivotal to a film's quality. Sure, there was an absurd of vulgarity to be found in his screenplays, and you could probably lose count with how many times his most famous creations uttered words that would make your parents grimace, but there was still a clever and surprisingly intelligent edge to them that could charm nearly anybody with a working brain. He was speaking for the little guy (figuratively speaking), the geeks, and the oddballs.

Fast forward to 2016, and the man who I always assumed was critic-proof is anything but these days. Beginning with 2010's fairly abysmal Cop Out, his critical accolades have been diminishing over the seeming lack of effort and divisive writing in most of his recent projects. While I admit that yes, I have been fairly confused and disappointed by these pictures myself, I still respect his commitment to essentially saying that he is going to do what most truly great directors do, which is delve into whatever territory that they wish to, and without the pestering of big Hollywood studios or disgruntled performers being able to interfere with their vision. Given Smith's previous output in the previous two decades, including beloved independent classics such as Clerks and Chasing Amy (two films that I would be more than happy to put onto my own personal top 100 list, should the demand for that ever come about), I'd say that he's earned every right to make a picture such as Yoga Hosers, his third foray into the realm of horror, and second into its mostly-beloved offshoot that is branded as horror-comedy.

Likewise, as someone who paid their hard-earned money to see the writer and director's newest cinematic release, I feel that I have earned the right to say that Yoga Hosers is a gigantic, ugly pile of clutter masquerading as a motion picture, and could serve as the final straw for those who have been struggling to defend Smith's weakest output over the years. However, there is no plausible way to dismiss the cynics this time around. With all of its way-too-obvious flaws being thrown right out into the open, it almost seems like it's mocking you for making the decision to see a terribly made film. Mind you, I have said time and time again that one can find an obscene amount to enjoy in movies that are so bad that they are good. But, those come from people or producers who set out with the honest-to-god belief that by making these mediocre screenplays and scripts into something that can fit onto the silver screen, they are creating genuinely good films. When you set out to make a bad feature on purpose, you usually end up with a festering heap of garbage that nobody outside of your circle of friends and immediate family will likely enjoy.

The big gist of Yoga Hosers' humor seems to come from one thought that crossed Kevin's mind (and presumably while he was very, very high): Canadians talk funny. If you were to make a drinking game with how times every single character, which ranges from the leads to cameos from two people who can not be that desperate for a paycheck in the day and age of nerd culture being so popular, utter the same old, tiresome clichéd Canadian slang ("sore-ree, aboot" ey," or a combination of all three), you would be dead from alcohol poisoning before the first act has even concluded. If you took Bob and Doug McKenzie and turned them up to eleven, you still wouldn't be able to equal the stereotyping churned out here. In small doses such as the brief appearance of the Colleens in connected movie Tusk, this can be mildly amusing. But when you are hit with a barrage of it over the span of ninety minutes, plus jokes as lackadaisical as Canadian citizens eating cereal such as "Pucky Charms" and "Honey Nut Cheeri-Eyys," it just leaves you feeling a bit stone cold.

....hey, it's better than anything in this fecal waterslide. Trust me.

Getting into the cast-side of things, I could begin with talking about the decision to cast young Harley Quinn Smith, the daughter of our aforementioned director, and Lily-Rose Depp (I'll give you two guesses as to who her father is) as protagonists Colleen M. and Colleen C. Before you accuse the film of nepotism, I would like to assure you that yes, it is blatantly obvious that this film is suffering from it. After all, I could dare you to try and catch all of the members of the Smith and Depp family if you can. Family-related favoritism is the least of Yoga Hosers' worries though. For the most part, the young ladies do seem to be enjoying themselves, and their decent chemistry with one another most likely stems from being close friends in real life. That's where the positive aspects of that spectrum end though. If you ever thought that Johnny Depp's prosthetic-heavy character of Guy LaPointe, the horrendous French-Canadian stereotype from Tusk, needed more screen time the same way that you thought the character Mater from Cars needed more exposure in its own sequel, then you are in for either a treat or a long series of sequences where you will be angrily leaning your fist against your cheek. Kevin Smith himself also shows up so that he may portray the Bratzis, who are brought to life via green screen and designed about as well as a modern day Puppet Master sequel from Full Moon Features. For a movie that cost approximately five million dollars to make, it looks remarkably cheap. And before anybody in particular jumps on me for that, Jeremy Saulnier's Green Room cost the same amount of money, and it looked far more impressive than this effort. Hell, Adam Wingard's You're Next was created for a fifth of what Yoga Hosers cost to make, and it also shines infinitely brighter by comparison.

Bad costuming and occasional effects aside, what Yoga Hosers thinks it makes up for in style more closely resembles that of when older, greedy executives attempt to cater to a generation that isn't nearly as stupid or easily amused as some people think that they are. Surprisingly, that group of higher-ups doesn't exist in a case such as this, because all of the feature's work belongs to, you guessed it, Kevin Smith. The plethora of such groan-inducing segments that constantly pop up time and time again (see below) can't be blamed on any other person but himself.

Note: I do NOT condone using your phone in a theater. However, when you are the sole ticket buyer, maybe it's understandable in cases like these. Also, really?

I can't stress enough about the repetition of Yoga Hosers, and why it's the biggest problem with the whole darn thing. A gag, such as the one that flashes an "Instacan Bio" every time that a new character appears on screen, is cute at first. The same can be said with having every resident other than our mainstays utter the title of this creation out of disgust once in a while. But, when it never seems to stop, it starts to get on your nerves, and ultimately makes you wish for every single person involved, be they good or evil, to just get off the screen and go back to taking part in better productions. Packing your picture with pop culture references, video game homages, or even throwbacks to other works of your past (catching nods to Clerks and its subsequent animated series does nothing to help its cause) can add to your overall fun factor. Heck, Edgar Wright's brilliant adaptation of Bryan Lee O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim graphic novels proved that. When it borders on pandering, and then ventures into desperate territory, you just come out feeling rather unhappy.

Factoring in the preplanned trip up north, plus the additional time it took for me to travel from Potomac, MD to the Arundel Mills shopping area (one of the two theaters within decent driving distance that happened to be playing this flick), I technically tracked seven and a half hours in my car so that I would get the chance to watch Yoga Hosers. I am uncertain if this is a record for myself when it comes to venturing out just to watch a stinking movie, but for the time being, I'll go with a yes. Kevin Smith's twelfth picture in his filmography (thirteenth if you count his segment in Holidays) also stands as the most depressing venture that I have taken to the Cineplex in several years. Yoga Hosers is what happens when a talented filmmaker throws a large array of ideas, be they silly or excruciating, into a blender. However, the individual has become too stoned to remember the fact that you have to plug in such a device in order for it to do its job, and the end result is just a foul-tasting, shockingly unfunny mess. If this is the New Jersey native's attempt to appeal to the teenage girl crowd, I think that sticking to something such as Chasing Amy, or even the wrongly-derided Jersey Girl, serves as a much better alternative. Kevin, I know that you will likely never see this review (although if you do, there's a very good chance that the negativity that I typed will be read aloud on your podcast), but as someone who will always identify himself as a fan before he ever gets tagged as a critic, I am asking you: put down your smoking paraphernalia and try writing something again with the intentions of it being a good motion picture. From this day forward, it seems like your intention is to have the movies that are trashed by the "haters" equal the amount of releases that are loved not just by your diehard fans, but by fans of cinema in general. And come on, the numerous amount of shots taken at the muckrakers and detractors in this movie, especially in a not-so-subtle manner, is beneath you and makes you look as petty and whiney as M. Night Shyamalan. I know that you are saying that at this stage in your career, you are choosing to make the movies that you want to make (which begs the question of when were you not?), and I will support your decision to take such a risk. Just remember: not everything devised and brainstormed on the Smodcast needs to be turned into an actual production.



The fact is, you're not just disappointing a longtime fan who even owns a signed Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back poster and two different trade paperback copies of the Clerks comic book. You're breaking my heart.





All of that being said, I'll see you at Moose Jaws. Just promise me that there won't be multiple segments involving bad singing.