best movie i've ever seen.

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

If you've only seen movies like "Ararat" (about the Armenian Genocide) and "The Barbarian Invasions" (about a political activist with terminal cancer who gets together with his friends), then you could be forgiven for thinking that Canada only makes masterpieces. Also, most of the movies riffed on "Mystery Science Theater 3000" are bad but only to the extent of being guilty pleasures (and some are merely slipshod).But every once in a while, there's a movie that's the celluloid equivalent of a human rights abuse. The crime against humanity in question is called "The Final Sacrifice", and it comes from Canada! An incompetently made piece of junk about a demonic cult and their quest to retrieve a map so that they can take over the world, it naturally provided fodder for MST3K. Pearl subjected Mike, Servo and Crow to it. The movie has so many plot holes and well-that-was-sure-convenient moments that I won't waste time discussing them, but let's just say that there's a reason why the people involved in the production don't have Wikipedia entries.Basically, it's got to be one of the worst movies ever made. Without a doubt you'll want to watch MST3K's presentation. If in fact you suffer the horrible fate of watching the movie on its own, then you'll want to follow it up with, say, an Ed Wood movie to wash the awfulness out of your mind. As for Canada, it's made movies like "The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz" (about a working class Jewish boy trying to make it big in 1940s Montreal) and "Strange Brew" (depicting a pair of archetypal Canadians), so it's mostly doing well.In conclusion, Pearl is a horrible person for making Mike and the 'bots watch this.

It may seem a little unfair to critique a movie that was made by a student filmmaker with little money and resources, but even when you view "The Final Sacrifice" with your expectations appropriately lowered, it is all the same a pretty bad movie. I agree with many of the complaints about it. The script has a number of unexplained touches to the story, and the plot moves at a very slow pace for the most part. The action sequences are largely dull and clunky. The movie looks unbelievably cheap, with little in the way of production values. So it's a little incredible then that a little merit can be found here and there. The cheap cinematography, dark and a little out of focus, actually gives the movie a little mood. Occasionally there is some camera-work that's a little impressive. And some of the stunts (which clearly show the actors and not stunt doubles) do impress. Don't get me wrong - this is a VERY bad movie. But I'm saying that it's not totally worthless. And the end results are probably better than if I were given the same unbelievably low budget and limited resources.

Oh dear, oh dear…So, the story of Ziox... maybe: A long time ago, an advanced civilization known as "Ziox" prospered. The people started worshiping an evil idol, so the regular god/gods were angered and punished them through forces of nature, causing their main city (or ONLY city, as it were) to be swallowed by the earth. The survivors continued to live alongside humans and… and by this point I'm just guessing.Here's the story of the movie: Seven years ago a guy was shot by a cult of supposedly, maybe Ziox-descendants. What we know for sure, is that the cult consists of ski mask guys in tank tops, that they're led by the black-clad Satoris, and that I start laughing every time I see him.In present time, the shot guy's skinny, teenage son Troy for the first time rummages through his dad's old stuff, and manages to find a folder marked "ZIOX" in 4 inch letters. It's filled with what looks like kids' drawings, and according to dad's notes, one of them is a one-of-a-kind map leading to the sunken city.Cut scene to anonymous hobo trying to start his truck in some dusty place. It won't start, and we never get to see hobo's face, so this scene is only in the movie to establish that the truck's crap, I guess?In the meantime, and also for the first time in seven years, the cult manages to find out where the guy they shot lived, and comes looking for the "map". Luckily, Troy has a bike (no, not a motorcycle, a regular ten-speed bike), so he outruns both the cult and their car, and ends up in the back up the crappy truck. We now get to see hobo's face for the first time, AND... he's a flabby, mustasched drunk. As if this wasn't bad enough, he's named Zap Rowsdower. (Is there anything that says "hero" like a fat drunk called Zap Rowsdower?)By sheer coincidence, Zap is one of the two humans in the world, or at least Canada, who know about the cult, so they talk a bit about it. The crappy truck breaks down somewhere, and what do you know – when Troy goes to get water, he finds stones that look like they're marked on the map. This is just a few minutes walk off the main road, and after a few minutes more, he (and Zap, who successfully ran after him without getting a heart-attack) finds a tunnel. Down it, there's some remnants of the Ziox civilization (?), and what I mean to say by that, is: Holy crap, those are cheap sets! Ugly, ugly papier maché. But expert Zap concludes that the tunnel "must have been dug hundreds of years ago". Guess that's the reason why everything's so untouched by time and nature down there. Anyway, while they're into finding stuff, they find a cabin belonging to Yosemite Sam's older brother. He greets them with a shotgun, but no worries: When Zap for the first and only time calls Troy "McGreggor" instead of "Troy",by another sheer coincidence, Yosemite turns out to be the OTHER of the only two humans who know about the cult - as well as Troy's dead dad's old friend. Now that all is well, the shotgun is put away, and Yosemite mutters out the history of Ziox, and how Troy's dad revealed the place of it and whatever. Oh yeah, by now we know that Zap was one of the cult, since he's a "half-blood" – which means Ziox people weren't human, or perhaps just not Canadian. Not sure what makes up the other half. Troy takes out the map and by drawing four lines on it (of which two are unnecessary), Yosemite marks out "the exact location of the city" - on a map that's never even been near according to scale. Oh, well...Next time we meet Satoris, he's taken Troy to the place of the evil idol – which can probably be seen from the road, by the way. Rumour has it that a human sacrifice will bring an undead, invincible army, which Satoris wants to get in order to take over the world. Very original... Zap comes too, without doing any actual searching for the place, so I guess the map really WAS exact. He finds a grappling hook just lying around and tries fighting Satoris. He's crap at it, but it doesn't matter since Troy shoots Satoris in the back with a shotgun, that was also just lying around. Satoris bursts into flame and the idol falls down for some reason, and the sunken town magically shows up again - all clean! The ski mask guys go to the town and Troy and Zap ride into the sunset in the crappy truck, after a heartfelt embrace.

Somewhere in Alberta (Eagle Hat?), Troy MacGregor is trying to find out why his father was killed when he comes across a map of the Ziox civilization in his attic. He's not the only interested party however, and is chased by Satoris and his hooded thugs. Troy chances up with Zap Rowsdower(yikes) who just happened to be a member of the cult until he was kicked out. Zap seems to have an instant dislike for Troy,as did I, and tries to rid himself of him by turning him into the police. As events unfold, it turns out the pair are close to where the map places the city so Troy investigates. Soon they meet up with Mike Pipper, who is Troy's fathers former partner. He's also the filthiest, grimiest man ever to grace the screen. Troy is kidnapped by the cult so Zap is off to save him and the truth about what happened to Troy's dad comes out in one big happy Chevy pickup truck flavored ending.Alright, it all sounds like a great story, but really, it's not told all that well. I guess it was made by some college students on a bus fare budget, which actually seems to add to the appeal. All the characters are hilarious at best. Rowsdower is an out of shape drunk with awful hair. Troy is a stick thin nerd who fills out a red sweater like nobody's business. And of course there's Mike Pipper and Satoris. Pipper's voice must be heard to be believed and Satoris is just terrible as the villain.Still, I actually will watch this movie and kind of like it. I've seen the MST3K version and I love it, but I've also seen it without Mike and the bots. It has a certain charm to it. It's not good by any means but it's fun and fun to laugh at. All in all, I say give it a try if you can find it.