A scene from the motion picture "Alien Vs. Predator: Requiem." (Gannett News Service, James Dittiger/Twentieth Century Fox/File)

The monsters are back on the big screen, and that's not a good thing in "Alien vs. Predator: Requiem."

If you're anything like me, at this point you're wondering "what the heck is a requiem, and what does it have to do with the 'Alien' and 'Predator' movies?"

If you'll forgive my regression into ninth-grade theme writing, according to dictionary.com "requiem" means "a mass for the deceased" or "musical composition for such a mass."

Considering there are no funerals in this film (and judging by the apparent mentality of all involved in this film), I'll have to assume someone just thought it was a cool-sounding word.

The film starts where the first left off, with the predator from the first film giving post-mortem birth to a new Predator/Alien hybrid as the Predator ship crashes back to Earth.

The Alien facehuggers on board the ship escape, and quickly begin multiplying and wreaking havoc, prompting the Predator homeworld to send another hunter to clean up the mess.

The rapidly growing Alien population is ravaging a nearby small town, when a new Predator arrives and our body count starts rising.

We settle on a few (too many) heroes: a young man fresh out of the joint and his sheriff buddy; the ex-con's brother and the girl he's flirting with; a servicewoman and her family apparently fresh off of a tour overseas.

Hardly a fitting group of adversaries for a film in either franchise.

The Strause Brothers take over from Paul W.S. Anderson, and they do him proud, turning two of the more memorable villains in film history into one-note slashers.

It's puzzling to see how each of these films went so wrong given the villains.

Simply drop them on a generic planet and have their struggles interrupt a burgeoning colony, throw in some interstellar marines and start worrying about amping up the tension.

Instead, our fodder consists of cut-rate castoffs from "The O.C.," victims Jason Voorhees would snicker at.

And all continuity is tossed out the window, as the film takes place some time around present day, and the facehugger-to-alien process goes from a day or so to a few minutes (and one alien can implant multiple eggs at the same time).

I was happy to see that the film went to an R rating from the previous AVP's lame PG-13, but pointless brutal on-screen deaths of young boys and pregnant women isn't quite what I had in mind.

If you thought the first "AVP" was the best thing since sliced bread, you'll be happy with what you'll see here.

But you might want to consider looking up "crap" in the dictionary. You just might find a still photo from "AVP:R" next to it.

Joe's verdict in a word: Janky

Movie details:
Rated: R for violence, gore and language.
Running time: 86 minutes.
Starring: Steven Pasquale, Reiko Aylesworth, John Ortiz.
Director: Colin Strause and Greg Strause.