When a studio sends a screener of a film that I don't like, I'm disappointed. After all, who goes into a movie not wanting to enjoy it? When a studio sends a screener of not one but two films that frustrate and annoy me, I'm frustrated. And annoyed.

Such is the case with Ariztical Entertainment's double feature of Junked and Hotel Room, two films I wouldn't watch again on a triple-dog-dare. It's harsh. I know. These movies bring that out of me.

Lance Lane's Junked is the bigger offender of the two, as it has a pretty decent cast and therefore greater potential than its grainy, indecipherable counterpart. It stars Thomas Jane (Stander) as the unlikely-named Switch, a guy who sells drugs. Or buys drugs. Or is waiting in an abandoned building to buy drugs. Or sell them. I don't think he's making them. Just buying or selling. And waiting. He waits with his sister, who's played by Cabin Fever's Jordan Ladd. She's for sure a prostitute, and she for sure takes drugs. I know that. And her boyfriend is Channon Roe (the guy who beats up Dirk Diggler in Boogie Nights), and he sometimes wears lipstick. And gets smacked around by Thomas Jane. He might take drugs. I'm not sure. But the lipstick thing, that's for real.

They all wait around this abandoned building and swear and yell at each other and threaten to fight and leave, and then good old Crow (the great Kevin Gage of Heat) shows up and wants to shoot at stuff and "get the money," so everyone focuses on that for a while. I don't want to spoil the ending for anyone, but any movie that involves drugs and guns and swearing and fighting and lipstick and guys saying "let's get the money" can pretty much only end one way. This one is no different.

If my disdain for Junked didn't come across in the plot summary, allow me to say that I didn't much care for it. It's not horribly acted, though I can't figure out why this group of actors agreed to participate in it - it feels like the worst, most pretentious student film you've ever seen.

Wait, I take that back. That honor goes to Hotel Room, a movie I might have liked even less if I were able to make out any of the onscreen action or dialogue being spoken. See, the source elements are either so awful or Ariztical Entertainment's transfer so inept that just about every moment of the movie is an unintelligable mess. The black and white image makes most poorly-treated workprints to shame, and the audio track is even worse; I had my player's volume as high as I could comfortably take it and I still couldn't make out most of what was being said. The lack of subtitles is no help. This is one horrible-looking and horrible-sounding DVD.

As for the film? Well, it borrows a page from Four Rooms (sort of) by confining all of the action to the interior of a hotel. Rather than aim high for four separate rooms, though, it sticks to just one. It's just as episodic as one might expect, telling the stories and anecdotes of everyone who passes through the room. The first, involving a dead body, was my favorite.

I don't enjoy being this negative, but these are fairly awful movies on DVDs that actually make them seem worse. Fans of Thomas Jane (sorry, I think it's "Tom" now) are better off with The Punisher, and fans of Hotel Rooms are better off staying at the Holiday Inn Express. They've got the number one guest-rated showerhead, you know.