Very low budget affair that I'm probably grading a bit too high based on the early promise it shows and the clear heart and desire the makers put into it. All that said, the movie ends up being a bit of a mess that drags on too long. At 1 Hour and 36 minutes, the movie could have easily cut off 20-25 minutes worth of stuff and been a much funner and tighter affair, especially the 2nd half.
The Landlord starts fine and fun enough, with the premise that a couple of demons are occupying a dudes apartment building and eating every new tenant he gets. It's clear from the get go there is very little budget, as the graphics and special effects are very low rent, but they work in the setting the movie starts out in, it's all very light and fun and forgivable. You understand the constraints the film makers are working under and you cut them some slack.
But from there the movie branches out into other story lines involving the landlords sister, who plays a cop, and has a deal with monsters who roam the streets. She provides them with scumbags to munch on, they provide her with all the cash and loot they get from the drug dealers and garbage they eat. It's not that that isn't an interesting story, and it has it's humorous and fun parts, it's even a little bit sexy when the sister and her partner have sex in the cop car. The problem is that it forces an abundance of scenes that rely on chase and gore, when the film clearly had the budget or technical know how for either. I can forgive clumsiness and no budget, but it seemed like they shoehorned a lot of scenes that exposed themselves into the movie and that I can't forgive. When the shortcomings add to the fun of the film it's ok, when they detract from it, it's not. Sometimes less is more.
Back to the landlord. A cute new tenant comes by and he finally decides he's had enough of the demons. The setup to this is good, as the chick who plays the tenant is cute but not crazy sexy and is pretty good given the material. The last 30 minutes of the movie descends into more bad effects and stuff that by this point pretty much lost me. It was just too much to sit through.
In the end a fun spirit and some laugh with, instead of laugh at, low budget budget fun sort of eats itself and becomes bigger and attempts to be grander than it should be. Still a nice effort though and I'd watch another movie by whoever made this if they had a bit more of a budget behind them.
I can't really recommend it, but I aint gonna diss it either. The Landlord has some good ideas, just not the tools to pull it off correctly.
Thursday, July 25, 2013
2010 Horror Fest: Blood Beach: 54 Out Of 100 Stars
I was just a wee Joey when the commercials for this movie scared the piss out of me. Released in 1981 in what I assume was a move to siphon off some of the Jaws hype, Blood Beach goes one step further than a Shark attacking people. In this sucker, the fucking beach is the killer. What's not to love?
So I'd pretty much forgotten those frightening commercials from my youth when I saw this title available for download and figured what the fuck
I'm excited right off the bat to find out that it stars Burt Young, Paulie from the Rocky movies, who has never not been awesome.
Something is sucking people down into the sand, and in the case of some people and things, biting parts of their anatomy off.
The leads are pretty faceless and totaly nameless. The dude is a Harbor Patrolemn who lives right on the beach and at one point in time was engaged to the daughter of the first lady who gets swallowed up. When Mom gets eaten by the sand, the daughter returns and old sparks reignite. This sort of went nowhere as a storyline and only served up some cheesy 80's music montages as they ate dinner and rekindled old flames.
I'm getting off track. Assigned to the case are two cops. A middle aged black sage and Uncle Paulie, who plays a cop named Royko. Paulie is playing a tough guy from Chicago who always has a hard edged take on everything he thinks is soft here in California. I'm fairly certain this is a sendup of columnist Mike Royko as all Paulie does all movie is deliver working class ruffian logic, and a devilshly melancholy attitude on everyone and every thing that's gone missing.
Their Captain is played by the dad from the original Nightmare series and he's all sorts of the bomb. He has 4 or 5 scenes that are pretty much monologues and he knocks em all out of the park.
Everything involving the cops works. All three of them take average material and knock it out of the park. The movie is legit fun to watch when they're on screen.
It's not so fun when it focuses on the dandy leads. Dude running around in shorts all the time with his sunbleached hair and his abs and shit. He's also pretty nondescript.
The kills and the monster are a bit of a letdown although watching some people be sucked in by sand was cool.
The conclussion of the film is pretty silly when a scientist gets shoehorned into the script and comes up with crazy theories and shit.
There are some great 80's moments like the night Harbor Patrol guard and his girlfriend who love to sing to each other. Theres even a bar scene where he rocks out on Keytair and then they sing a duet. Then a rape scene under the peer where the two participants do the crab at each other for about a minute is also entertaining.
So yeah, I made it all the way through, wasn't sure it'd be even that good. I'm guessing that at the time this was pretty ok, and it does have replay value just for the cops, so i'll reccomend it if you can find it.
Surf on in to Blood Beach, it just might suck you in.
So I'd pretty much forgotten those frightening commercials from my youth when I saw this title available for download and figured what the fuck
I'm excited right off the bat to find out that it stars Burt Young, Paulie from the Rocky movies, who has never not been awesome.
Something is sucking people down into the sand, and in the case of some people and things, biting parts of their anatomy off.
The leads are pretty faceless and totaly nameless. The dude is a Harbor Patrolemn who lives right on the beach and at one point in time was engaged to the daughter of the first lady who gets swallowed up. When Mom gets eaten by the sand, the daughter returns and old sparks reignite. This sort of went nowhere as a storyline and only served up some cheesy 80's music montages as they ate dinner and rekindled old flames.
I'm getting off track. Assigned to the case are two cops. A middle aged black sage and Uncle Paulie, who plays a cop named Royko. Paulie is playing a tough guy from Chicago who always has a hard edged take on everything he thinks is soft here in California. I'm fairly certain this is a sendup of columnist Mike Royko as all Paulie does all movie is deliver working class ruffian logic, and a devilshly melancholy attitude on everyone and every thing that's gone missing.
Their Captain is played by the dad from the original Nightmare series and he's all sorts of the bomb. He has 4 or 5 scenes that are pretty much monologues and he knocks em all out of the park.
Everything involving the cops works. All three of them take average material and knock it out of the park. The movie is legit fun to watch when they're on screen.
It's not so fun when it focuses on the dandy leads. Dude running around in shorts all the time with his sunbleached hair and his abs and shit. He's also pretty nondescript.
The kills and the monster are a bit of a letdown although watching some people be sucked in by sand was cool.
The conclussion of the film is pretty silly when a scientist gets shoehorned into the script and comes up with crazy theories and shit.
There are some great 80's moments like the night Harbor Patrol guard and his girlfriend who love to sing to each other. Theres even a bar scene where he rocks out on Keytair and then they sing a duet. Then a rape scene under the peer where the two participants do the crab at each other for about a minute is also entertaining.
So yeah, I made it all the way through, wasn't sure it'd be even that good. I'm guessing that at the time this was pretty ok, and it does have replay value just for the cops, so i'll reccomend it if you can find it.
Surf on in to Blood Beach, it just might suck you in.
2010 Horror Fest: A Mexican Werewolf In Texas: 34 Out Of 100 Stars
Rating this movie a bit high in spite of it's technical flaws, of which it has many, but which I personally forgave. Other viewers may not be so lenient.
This is a pretty low budget romp about a border town in Texas being besieged by the infamous Chupacabra.
The actual story being told that revolves around the main characters, a group of teenage friends, is solid. There is something out in the desert killing sheep, small dogs, and eventually humans. From the get go the teens are on to it as being Chupacabra, but the older folks in town write it off as a coyote.
The writing in the film all and all is not that strong, and from a technical standpoint it's pretty bad. Editing and camera work is just very good. The gore looked good except most the kill scenes occur at night and the lighting is horrendous. Add in a low grade camera and all you end up with is glimpses of blood and guts without any real idea of what's happening. You'd think people making movies would be smart enough to try and film around the shortcomings they're presented with, but not here.
The audio mix is also among the worst I've encountered as I legit had to put headphones in halfway through the movie just so I didn't have to mess with the audio constantly. No matter how high I turned the volume it was still muffled or drowned out.
The first half of the movie is all over the place as we have some killings, a bunch of idiot characters introduced, a sub plot about Americans hating Mexicans and vice versa, that sort of gets dropped right after it's brought up.
The other problem is that without fail all the adult actors are realllllly bad. Turns out the people who play the mother and father of the films teenage heroin were also the producers, so that explains that. But to say they were wooden is an understatement. I understand that the writer/director probably had no other choice then to put them in the movie, but god damn. How they couldn't look at the finished product and be embarrassed for themselves I have no idea.
The second half of the movie which focuses more on the teenagers, 3 of which are chicks, 2 cute and 1 flat out sexy, is much better, though that's not to say it's good per say. Just tighter and more efficient and not embarrassing to watch.
Like I said, the gore looked good when you could see it. Not sure if it was hidden on purpose to make it seem that way or if the technical budget just wasn't up to par, I'm guessing the later. I'd also be willing to guess that most of the adult roles were given out by the producers rather than cast, which is sort of sad but if you're trying to get finance for your film I guess you gotta do what you gotta do.
I'd watch another movie by the dude who made this cause it seems like he has some idea of what he's doing.
This Werewolf has some bite, but it's mostly just annoying bark.
This is a pretty low budget romp about a border town in Texas being besieged by the infamous Chupacabra.
The actual story being told that revolves around the main characters, a group of teenage friends, is solid. There is something out in the desert killing sheep, small dogs, and eventually humans. From the get go the teens are on to it as being Chupacabra, but the older folks in town write it off as a coyote.
The writing in the film all and all is not that strong, and from a technical standpoint it's pretty bad. Editing and camera work is just very good. The gore looked good except most the kill scenes occur at night and the lighting is horrendous. Add in a low grade camera and all you end up with is glimpses of blood and guts without any real idea of what's happening. You'd think people making movies would be smart enough to try and film around the shortcomings they're presented with, but not here.
The audio mix is also among the worst I've encountered as I legit had to put headphones in halfway through the movie just so I didn't have to mess with the audio constantly. No matter how high I turned the volume it was still muffled or drowned out.
The first half of the movie is all over the place as we have some killings, a bunch of idiot characters introduced, a sub plot about Americans hating Mexicans and vice versa, that sort of gets dropped right after it's brought up.
The other problem is that without fail all the adult actors are realllllly bad. Turns out the people who play the mother and father of the films teenage heroin were also the producers, so that explains that. But to say they were wooden is an understatement. I understand that the writer/director probably had no other choice then to put them in the movie, but god damn. How they couldn't look at the finished product and be embarrassed for themselves I have no idea.
The second half of the movie which focuses more on the teenagers, 3 of which are chicks, 2 cute and 1 flat out sexy, is much better, though that's not to say it's good per say. Just tighter and more efficient and not embarrassing to watch.
Like I said, the gore looked good when you could see it. Not sure if it was hidden on purpose to make it seem that way or if the technical budget just wasn't up to par, I'm guessing the later. I'd also be willing to guess that most of the adult roles were given out by the producers rather than cast, which is sort of sad but if you're trying to get finance for your film I guess you gotta do what you gotta do.
I'd watch another movie by the dude who made this cause it seems like he has some idea of what he's doing.
This Werewolf has some bite, but it's mostly just annoying bark.
2010 Horror Fest: Forgive Me For Raping You: 0 Out Of 100 Stars
I had read that this was a controversial film, and with a title like that, who's to argue. Turns out it's nothing more than a low rent, softcore rape movie that appears to be nothing more than a vehicle for the writer/director/star to surround himself with naked women. A real sad film, by what i'm guessing is a real sad guy, who has just about zero artistic vision, zero artistic ability and looks like he's got an odor about him.
The story, and I use that term loosely, is that a Priest is using his position to molest chicks. There is a ton of nudity and simulated sex but it has to be shot around the leads largeness, so it all sort of just looks clunky. The chicks are ok, not overly hot but not slobs. The acting is pretty wretched and the audio is a hindrance because it's both tinny and there is constant annoying music playing. There isn't even any real psychologically fitting rape in the movie, all the chicks are timid and give in. It's just a big ol annoying movie.
This plays like something that would have been underground in 1985, and you get the VHS and pop it in and 10 minutes later you've fast forwarded through the whole thing wondering what the hell you just saw and what was supposed to be so edgy about it.
Just a collection of scenes with a fat guy feeling chicks up. Forgive Me For Watching You, is more like it.
The story, and I use that term loosely, is that a Priest is using his position to molest chicks. There is a ton of nudity and simulated sex but it has to be shot around the leads largeness, so it all sort of just looks clunky. The chicks are ok, not overly hot but not slobs. The acting is pretty wretched and the audio is a hindrance because it's both tinny and there is constant annoying music playing. There isn't even any real psychologically fitting rape in the movie, all the chicks are timid and give in. It's just a big ol annoying movie.
This plays like something that would have been underground in 1985, and you get the VHS and pop it in and 10 minutes later you've fast forwarded through the whole thing wondering what the hell you just saw and what was supposed to be so edgy about it.
Just a collection of scenes with a fat guy feeling chicks up. Forgive Me For Watching You, is more like it.
2010 Horror Fest: Someones Knocking At My Door: 65 Out Of 100 Stars
This low budget movie bills itself as a "total mind fuck" and I personally can't disagree with some of the innovative ways they make use of sound and editing to draw the viewer in, but at the same time I think a lot of people may just get irritated. But this is my review, not theirs.
The main problems with the film are the usual ones among low budget movies like this. It's supposed to be the story of a group of medical students, but you never feel like they're really medical students. A good portion of the cast is also pretty low rent, including a black stutterer who really has no place in the film yet uses up multiple scenes just wasting screen time in the place of anything interesting. The male and female leads however are solid enough, and the story is a fun enough premise that doesn't get run into the ground thanks to the aforementioned audio and visual tricks the makers pull.
There's a lot here to like, and I'd love to see these guys work with a bigger budget because I think their style is pretty innovative.
If being raped to death and mind fucked are your cup of tea, then answer your door and watch this baby.
The main problems with the film are the usual ones among low budget movies like this. It's supposed to be the story of a group of medical students, but you never feel like they're really medical students. A good portion of the cast is also pretty low rent, including a black stutterer who really has no place in the film yet uses up multiple scenes just wasting screen time in the place of anything interesting. The male and female leads however are solid enough, and the story is a fun enough premise that doesn't get run into the ground thanks to the aforementioned audio and visual tricks the makers pull.
There's a lot here to like, and I'd love to see these guys work with a bigger budget because I think their style is pretty innovative.
If being raped to death and mind fucked are your cup of tea, then answer your door and watch this baby.
2010 Horror Fest: Blood Night, The Legend Of Mary Hatchet: 24 Out Of 100 Stars
Oy vey. A promising opening 10 minutes gives way to one of the more wretched horror movies i've seen in a while. Thing is, it follows the formula to a tee and is still tedious to watch.
The opening few moments of the film are pretty strong as we're introduced to the Mary Hatchet character. A young girl who went kind of crazy and killed her folks. Years in a mental institution drove her even crazier until she was finally put down after a second killing spree. The idea of a hot chick walking around naked, killing people, really had me juiced up.
Unfortunately the film then jumps to present day and focuses on a bunch of kids who are celebrating the anniversary of Marys murderous rampage by holding a graveside seance and a house party.
The filmmakers seem to understand what parts are needed to build a horror movie, they just don't have a fucking clue how to actually make a movie. Let's put it this way, when teenage tits and teenagers fucking bore me, you've really gone off track.
The biggest problem is the dialogue. Never before have high school seniors been so excited to use a blender. Everything is exciting to these people, everyone is constantly talking and laughing but I'm not sure at what. It's as if the script just instructed everyone to banter or mumble. There are even moments when it's clear the audio is being recycled. Just super low rent. But that's almost better than the insufferable dialogue. It's like this, ya know when you have to take a shit but you aren't near a toilet and you're trying to relax but you're stomach is going nuts and the last thing you want is people talking to you and bothering you? That's what trying to watch these characters is like. The movie had to have been written by the most annoying dude on planet earth.
Anyway, there is a lot of titty and sexuality but the makers also seem to love the idea of editing as nothing is given enough time to be focused on. Constant cuts, and teenagers yelling and laughing at anything and everything. It gave me a fucking headache when i should have been chubbing up.
Once the story starts to unfold it gets even more ridiculous as people run scared from something they have no reason to be scared of, and scream some more. The gore is abundant, but most of the kills are weak looking.
Just a downer of a film that looked somewhat promising.
This fucker doesn't deserve a tag line. Just don't fucking watch it.
The opening few moments of the film are pretty strong as we're introduced to the Mary Hatchet character. A young girl who went kind of crazy and killed her folks. Years in a mental institution drove her even crazier until she was finally put down after a second killing spree. The idea of a hot chick walking around naked, killing people, really had me juiced up.
Unfortunately the film then jumps to present day and focuses on a bunch of kids who are celebrating the anniversary of Marys murderous rampage by holding a graveside seance and a house party.
The filmmakers seem to understand what parts are needed to build a horror movie, they just don't have a fucking clue how to actually make a movie. Let's put it this way, when teenage tits and teenagers fucking bore me, you've really gone off track.
The biggest problem is the dialogue. Never before have high school seniors been so excited to use a blender. Everything is exciting to these people, everyone is constantly talking and laughing but I'm not sure at what. It's as if the script just instructed everyone to banter or mumble. There are even moments when it's clear the audio is being recycled. Just super low rent. But that's almost better than the insufferable dialogue. It's like this, ya know when you have to take a shit but you aren't near a toilet and you're trying to relax but you're stomach is going nuts and the last thing you want is people talking to you and bothering you? That's what trying to watch these characters is like. The movie had to have been written by the most annoying dude on planet earth.
Anyway, there is a lot of titty and sexuality but the makers also seem to love the idea of editing as nothing is given enough time to be focused on. Constant cuts, and teenagers yelling and laughing at anything and everything. It gave me a fucking headache when i should have been chubbing up.
Once the story starts to unfold it gets even more ridiculous as people run scared from something they have no reason to be scared of, and scream some more. The gore is abundant, but most of the kills are weak looking.
Just a downer of a film that looked somewhat promising.
This fucker doesn't deserve a tag line. Just don't fucking watch it.
2010 Horror Fest: Nine Miles Down: 74 Out Of 100 Stars
This is why I watch all these movies, to find something awesome like this.
Starring Highlander himself, Adrian Paul, Nine Miles Down is a fun fucking mindfuck of a movie that will draw you in and wrap you up while it stabs you in the nuts.
The premise is simple. A security guard has been called to a remote desert drilling site where only one person remains alive, a hot chick. Sounds good.
The movie throws out a lot of questions and riddles while not getting bogged down in them. The script is nice and tight, and while it deals with the supernatural and unexplained, it lets it's leads be the catalysts and not the mythos.
Visually, the movie is stunning. There are many cool effects that help move the actors along and really compliments the ordeal the characters are going through. More than once I was impressed with something new I saw, effects wise, which is something I certainly didn't expect from a low budget film.
At times the movie has a very European style when it comes to the acting, much more dramatic and internal, which seemed a bit out of place for a movie like this where despite just the two characters and not much moving around it still plays as hectic. But the style started to work on me.
If you like suspense, the occult, or just plain human drama, give this fucker a try.
Nine Miles Down gets 2 thumbs up.
Starring Highlander himself, Adrian Paul, Nine Miles Down is a fun fucking mindfuck of a movie that will draw you in and wrap you up while it stabs you in the nuts.
The premise is simple. A security guard has been called to a remote desert drilling site where only one person remains alive, a hot chick. Sounds good.
The movie throws out a lot of questions and riddles while not getting bogged down in them. The script is nice and tight, and while it deals with the supernatural and unexplained, it lets it's leads be the catalysts and not the mythos.
Visually, the movie is stunning. There are many cool effects that help move the actors along and really compliments the ordeal the characters are going through. More than once I was impressed with something new I saw, effects wise, which is something I certainly didn't expect from a low budget film.
At times the movie has a very European style when it comes to the acting, much more dramatic and internal, which seemed a bit out of place for a movie like this where despite just the two characters and not much moving around it still plays as hectic. But the style started to work on me.
If you like suspense, the occult, or just plain human drama, give this fucker a try.
Nine Miles Down gets 2 thumbs up.
2010 Horror Fest: Resident Evil, Afterlife: 54 Out Of 100 Stars
Fourth film in the series. I loved the first, hated the second, and enjoyed the third. So here we are.
It's pretty hard to fuck this up if you give the audience what they want. Zombies and lots of bloodshed. Throw in two of the hottest chicks in Hollywood in Mila Jovovich and Wentworth Miller and you've got a recipe for success.
This sort of picks up where the last one left off, timeline wise at least. But Alice has been doing some traveling between films. The bulk of this one is centered around Alice and the few living souls she finds trying to make their way to Arcadia, which turns out not to be what we, or she thought it was. Ali Larter also returns.
What it wants to do it does well enough, the story feels more like the middle then the end however, and there's a bit too much of the slow motion shit for my tastes. It's very much a one note movie and besides Miller, there aren't really any strong new characters, but whatevs.
Big, loud and bombastic, Resident Evil 4 doesn't break any new ground but rather keeps chugging along with the tried and true formula. If you wanna see a hot chick kill zombies and jump around to shitty music then you'll love this movie.
It's pretty hard to fuck this up if you give the audience what they want. Zombies and lots of bloodshed. Throw in two of the hottest chicks in Hollywood in Mila Jovovich and Wentworth Miller and you've got a recipe for success.
This sort of picks up where the last one left off, timeline wise at least. But Alice has been doing some traveling between films. The bulk of this one is centered around Alice and the few living souls she finds trying to make their way to Arcadia, which turns out not to be what we, or she thought it was. Ali Larter also returns.
What it wants to do it does well enough, the story feels more like the middle then the end however, and there's a bit too much of the slow motion shit for my tastes. It's very much a one note movie and besides Miller, there aren't really any strong new characters, but whatevs.
Big, loud and bombastic, Resident Evil 4 doesn't break any new ground but rather keeps chugging along with the tried and true formula. If you wanna see a hot chick kill zombies and jump around to shitty music then you'll love this movie.
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
2010 Horror Fest: Assault Of The Sasquatch: 25 Out Of 100 Stars
Silly, low budget movie about....well, the title suggests an assaulting Sasquatch.
It doesn't take long for us to figure out exactly what kind of movie we're in for, as a trio of bear hunters come upon the titular character while trying to illegally hunt bears. We've got the fat hunter. The dorky, fidgety hunter. And the old, crusty leader with white hair, bad teeth and an eye patch. In other words, we know exactly what the filmmakers think passes for comedy. Upon sedating and locking up the Sasquatch in a truck, the crusty old dude places a call to a buyer, who of course is wearing a full safari getup on a private jet.
Oh yeah, the lead is a brooding former cop who now works for the park service. We know he's brooding because he's always looking away and sounding glib about everything.
Ok, this thing is such a fantastic mess that vacillates between 3rd grade characters, and SEVERELY heavy handed plot points and melodrama. On one hand we have 2 geeks, one of whom is a high pitched obese kid, chasing the Sasquatch around the city after they spy it on a FIRE ESCAPE, watching a woman shower.
So the brooding cop and his female partner find the crusty old hunter in the woods and decide to haul him to the local precinct. At no time do they notice blood all over his cargo truck or bother to look inside of it, but ok.
So the fun starts when they get to the police station. Here the movie turns into As The World Turns. The cops daughter shows up to pick him up, at the same time a man is brought in on a speeding charge. Turns out the perp is the guy who killed the cops wife some 10 years ago. The plot is just so overly ridiculous. We're treated to dialogue that people who write Lifetime movies would laugh at. Oh yeah, the Sasquatch escaped the truck parked outside the police station, but that's neither here nor there because the film doesn't appear to care much about the Sasquatch at all.
I should also note that the Sasquatch looks like Predator, crossed with an original Planet Of The Apes outfit. I mean to say it looks ridiculous is pretty much the understatement of the century. The sasquatch also appears to be able to teleport all over the city, as from one scene to the next he's in places the film has established are a good distance away from each other.
Ok look, there have been, and there will be spoilers all over this review cause I just can't help myself.
So the former cops daughter is at the cop station with him right? And her boyfriend is at school, which earlier in the film has been established as at least driving distance away. So in onc scene everyone in the police station finally notices the truck outside is open and they go out to check it out. Despite having escaped from said truck a good 20 minutes ago and prancing around the city, the sasquatch is now back at the truck at this exact moment. So everyone runs back inside and locks the doors to the police station. Now, the very next scene shows the daughters boyfriend, back at school, finding her purse and deciding to bring it to her. So as he starts walking, who should be right behind him? If you said The Sasquatch you win a D- in 2nd grade storytelling.
Here's the other thing. It's sort of funny how the sasquatch attacks the boyfriend, but at the same time it's trying to get silly laughs using sight gags. It's cutting between that, and the girlfriend watching her boyfriend get attacked and reacting like she's in some sort of Shakespearean tragedy, complete with slow motion shots of her crying and mourning. It's just a jumbled fucking mess of epic proportions.
Ok, so everyone in the station is standing in a doorway together, like 5 people. The daughter gets snatched by something. Who runs after her? The secretary. The dad? He stands there with the other 2 cops and watches. HIS DAUGHTER GETS GRABBED AND DRAGGED AWAY AND HE WATCHES AS THE SECRETARY RUNS AFTER HER. This father that the movie spent the first 20 minutes establishing is way too overprotective of his daughter, suddenly appears to care not. Even while the other two cops are stationary but frantic, he's sort of just standing there. This is just a study in awful movie making.
Ok, so the sasquatch takes the daughter what would appear to be about 10 feet outside the station before he starts sniffing her. While the 3 cops are still inside the building doing I'm not sure what, the secretary cuts her skirt and brandishes a knife to make herself look like Lara Croft. We're then treated to a fight scene between a sasquatch and a 100lb woman. I really can't even begin to describe how insanely ridiculous this is. The woman karate kicks sasquatch and we're treated to a shot of the daughter looking on and smiling.
I mean.........This is one of those movies where you have to think it's trying to parody something just so you'll stay sane watching it.
Ya know what this movie is? This is the theatrical equivalent of watching the girl you truly love with all your heart willingly gang bang every guy you hate, while they mock you. These idiots have been lucky enough to get the money to make a decently budgeted movie and this is what they're doing with it. And nobody with the power to stop them (your love) even thinks to ask them WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT? They're just letting the cock go up their ass and the cum splatter across their face.
Ok, so remember the speeding ticket guy who killed the main characters wife some 10 years ago? Well he escaped from his cell about half an hour ago. He shows up looking like he's been running all over for the last 30 minutes. Where does he show up? Right outside the police station. Maybe there was a treadmill in the basement or something. This fucking thing. So instead of continuing to run, the perp just sort of walks around outside the police station like he's on patrol or something.
So they let the old hunter out of his jail cell so he'll help them with the sasquatch, and he breaks into a soliloquy about the mythos of bigfoot and talking about how it hunts, and it's skills, and what not. This would be fine if we hadn't just seen the fucking thing at a pizza shop.
Ok, about 55 minutes in I believe the sasquatch has now become a defender of justice because he's wandering around and getting angry at pimps for slapping their ho's. In a scene straight out of The Incredible Hulk TV series, he lays down some sasquatch justice. NOW THIS IS A FUCKING SCENE. Easily the best thing in the movie right here.
The crusty old hunter says that "for some reason we must have pissed that thing off", lemme see, you trapped it in a bear trap, shot it up with about 5 tranquilizer darts and then shot it with actual bullets. Yeah, there may be some reason it's mad at you.
Ok, there's a scene with two very awesome kills, but it degenerates into more overwrought story and acting.
So they finally decide it might be a good time to escape. They decide the way to do this is through a sewer that will "lead them into the city", even though we've seen like 100 satellite characters all within about 10 seconds of the police station. It's the most crowded middle of nowhere ever.
God dammit this thing is giving me a headache. Characters motivations change from one scene to the next, even the fucking bigfoot. People get lost 10 feet apart from each other, never move, and then find each other 5 minutes later.
The hunter and the sasquatch are having their big fight in an abandoned warehouse when luckily enough for the hunter, he finds a nail gun and...........NAILS THE SASQUATCH IN PLACE BY SHOOTING 2 NAILS INTO IT'S FOOT. This is making my head hurt.
So I'm gonna go ahead and give this 25 stars for the few moments of comedy that work, and the gore moments are pretty fucking solid. Everything else though is a hodgepodge of shit you didn't find funny in 3rd grade, mixed with ridiculous "Drama" that amped up 1000% would still struggle to be on the level of a Tom Wopat Hallmark Channel movie.
On the bright side, at least this movie was truly atrocious and made me feel something. Even if it was anger, sadness and befuddlement.
Assault Of The Sasquatch is more like an assault on the senses.
It doesn't take long for us to figure out exactly what kind of movie we're in for, as a trio of bear hunters come upon the titular character while trying to illegally hunt bears. We've got the fat hunter. The dorky, fidgety hunter. And the old, crusty leader with white hair, bad teeth and an eye patch. In other words, we know exactly what the filmmakers think passes for comedy. Upon sedating and locking up the Sasquatch in a truck, the crusty old dude places a call to a buyer, who of course is wearing a full safari getup on a private jet.
Oh yeah, the lead is a brooding former cop who now works for the park service. We know he's brooding because he's always looking away and sounding glib about everything.
Ok, this thing is such a fantastic mess that vacillates between 3rd grade characters, and SEVERELY heavy handed plot points and melodrama. On one hand we have 2 geeks, one of whom is a high pitched obese kid, chasing the Sasquatch around the city after they spy it on a FIRE ESCAPE, watching a woman shower.
So the brooding cop and his female partner find the crusty old hunter in the woods and decide to haul him to the local precinct. At no time do they notice blood all over his cargo truck or bother to look inside of it, but ok.
So the fun starts when they get to the police station. Here the movie turns into As The World Turns. The cops daughter shows up to pick him up, at the same time a man is brought in on a speeding charge. Turns out the perp is the guy who killed the cops wife some 10 years ago. The plot is just so overly ridiculous. We're treated to dialogue that people who write Lifetime movies would laugh at. Oh yeah, the Sasquatch escaped the truck parked outside the police station, but that's neither here nor there because the film doesn't appear to care much about the Sasquatch at all.
I should also note that the Sasquatch looks like Predator, crossed with an original Planet Of The Apes outfit. I mean to say it looks ridiculous is pretty much the understatement of the century. The sasquatch also appears to be able to teleport all over the city, as from one scene to the next he's in places the film has established are a good distance away from each other.
Ok look, there have been, and there will be spoilers all over this review cause I just can't help myself.
So the former cops daughter is at the cop station with him right? And her boyfriend is at school, which earlier in the film has been established as at least driving distance away. So in onc scene everyone in the police station finally notices the truck outside is open and they go out to check it out. Despite having escaped from said truck a good 20 minutes ago and prancing around the city, the sasquatch is now back at the truck at this exact moment. So everyone runs back inside and locks the doors to the police station. Now, the very next scene shows the daughters boyfriend, back at school, finding her purse and deciding to bring it to her. So as he starts walking, who should be right behind him? If you said The Sasquatch you win a D- in 2nd grade storytelling.
Here's the other thing. It's sort of funny how the sasquatch attacks the boyfriend, but at the same time it's trying to get silly laughs using sight gags. It's cutting between that, and the girlfriend watching her boyfriend get attacked and reacting like she's in some sort of Shakespearean tragedy, complete with slow motion shots of her crying and mourning. It's just a jumbled fucking mess of epic proportions.
Ok, so everyone in the station is standing in a doorway together, like 5 people. The daughter gets snatched by something. Who runs after her? The secretary. The dad? He stands there with the other 2 cops and watches. HIS DAUGHTER GETS GRABBED AND DRAGGED AWAY AND HE WATCHES AS THE SECRETARY RUNS AFTER HER. This father that the movie spent the first 20 minutes establishing is way too overprotective of his daughter, suddenly appears to care not. Even while the other two cops are stationary but frantic, he's sort of just standing there. This is just a study in awful movie making.
Ok, so the sasquatch takes the daughter what would appear to be about 10 feet outside the station before he starts sniffing her. While the 3 cops are still inside the building doing I'm not sure what, the secretary cuts her skirt and brandishes a knife to make herself look like Lara Croft. We're then treated to a fight scene between a sasquatch and a 100lb woman. I really can't even begin to describe how insanely ridiculous this is. The woman karate kicks sasquatch and we're treated to a shot of the daughter looking on and smiling.
I mean.........This is one of those movies where you have to think it's trying to parody something just so you'll stay sane watching it.
Ya know what this movie is? This is the theatrical equivalent of watching the girl you truly love with all your heart willingly gang bang every guy you hate, while they mock you. These idiots have been lucky enough to get the money to make a decently budgeted movie and this is what they're doing with it. And nobody with the power to stop them (your love) even thinks to ask them WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT? They're just letting the cock go up their ass and the cum splatter across their face.
Ok, so remember the speeding ticket guy who killed the main characters wife some 10 years ago? Well he escaped from his cell about half an hour ago. He shows up looking like he's been running all over for the last 30 minutes. Where does he show up? Right outside the police station. Maybe there was a treadmill in the basement or something. This fucking thing. So instead of continuing to run, the perp just sort of walks around outside the police station like he's on patrol or something.
So they let the old hunter out of his jail cell so he'll help them with the sasquatch, and he breaks into a soliloquy about the mythos of bigfoot and talking about how it hunts, and it's skills, and what not. This would be fine if we hadn't just seen the fucking thing at a pizza shop.
Ok, about 55 minutes in I believe the sasquatch has now become a defender of justice because he's wandering around and getting angry at pimps for slapping their ho's. In a scene straight out of The Incredible Hulk TV series, he lays down some sasquatch justice. NOW THIS IS A FUCKING SCENE. Easily the best thing in the movie right here.
The crusty old hunter says that "for some reason we must have pissed that thing off", lemme see, you trapped it in a bear trap, shot it up with about 5 tranquilizer darts and then shot it with actual bullets. Yeah, there may be some reason it's mad at you.
Ok, there's a scene with two very awesome kills, but it degenerates into more overwrought story and acting.
So they finally decide it might be a good time to escape. They decide the way to do this is through a sewer that will "lead them into the city", even though we've seen like 100 satellite characters all within about 10 seconds of the police station. It's the most crowded middle of nowhere ever.
God dammit this thing is giving me a headache. Characters motivations change from one scene to the next, even the fucking bigfoot. People get lost 10 feet apart from each other, never move, and then find each other 5 minutes later.
The hunter and the sasquatch are having their big fight in an abandoned warehouse when luckily enough for the hunter, he finds a nail gun and...........NAILS THE SASQUATCH IN PLACE BY SHOOTING 2 NAILS INTO IT'S FOOT. This is making my head hurt.
So I'm gonna go ahead and give this 25 stars for the few moments of comedy that work, and the gore moments are pretty fucking solid. Everything else though is a hodgepodge of shit you didn't find funny in 3rd grade, mixed with ridiculous "Drama" that amped up 1000% would still struggle to be on the level of a Tom Wopat Hallmark Channel movie.
On the bright side, at least this movie was truly atrocious and made me feel something. Even if it was anger, sadness and befuddlement.
Assault Of The Sasquatch is more like an assault on the senses.
2010 Horror Fest: The Poughkeepsie Tapes: 30 Out Of 100 Stars
Low budget attempt at the "murdermentary" genre, that suffers from an overstuffed script and generaly below average acting.
The idea is that a documentary is being put together about a serial killer. FBI Agents, detectives, forensic specialist, psychologists and more, are shown commenting on and discussing the main character, a serial killer who raped, murdered and tortured numerous women over a 10 year period.
Interspersed with all of this are homemade videos found by detectives, that the killer himself made.
The best thing I can say about the film is that it has moments of stark brutality, maybe not enough of them, as they're really the only thing that works. The ending also has a pretty solid stomach punch moment.
Other then that though, there really isn't much here to sink your teeth into in any serious manner.
I've mentioned before about movies like this and how you'd think this would be an easy way to cover for lesser actors, having them be a part of a documentary style film, but really it just makes the sub par acting stand out more. When a dude is just looking straight into a camera and acting, there's nothing to distract you from his performance.
The killers footage is also a big negative. Most of it is grainy or distorted, which makes the longer scenes centered around him pretty hard to watch and get in to. Other moments just seem out of place. A dude sneaking into a house to kill people, all the while holding a camera, doesn't come across as scary as much as it comes across as distracting.
The last major flaw is the movies desire to build a story bigger than just the tapes of a sadistic killer. They give him what I found to be a silly mythology about his ability to create different profiles and what not. I found it silly but I could accept it. What I couldn't accept was an absurd plot twist that involved a framed cop and 9/11. At that point the filmmakers were just creating way too much fucking story. And bad story at that.
There's very little nudity and no titillation whatsoever.
In the end it's a fair idea, that gets wrapped up in too much plot without enough quality acting, and not much gore to speak of. The biggest criticism I can give the movie is that it's just sort of boring.
Poughkeepsie? More like PoughDontsee.
The idea is that a documentary is being put together about a serial killer. FBI Agents, detectives, forensic specialist, psychologists and more, are shown commenting on and discussing the main character, a serial killer who raped, murdered and tortured numerous women over a 10 year period.
Interspersed with all of this are homemade videos found by detectives, that the killer himself made.
The best thing I can say about the film is that it has moments of stark brutality, maybe not enough of them, as they're really the only thing that works. The ending also has a pretty solid stomach punch moment.
Other then that though, there really isn't much here to sink your teeth into in any serious manner.
I've mentioned before about movies like this and how you'd think this would be an easy way to cover for lesser actors, having them be a part of a documentary style film, but really it just makes the sub par acting stand out more. When a dude is just looking straight into a camera and acting, there's nothing to distract you from his performance.
The killers footage is also a big negative. Most of it is grainy or distorted, which makes the longer scenes centered around him pretty hard to watch and get in to. Other moments just seem out of place. A dude sneaking into a house to kill people, all the while holding a camera, doesn't come across as scary as much as it comes across as distracting.
The last major flaw is the movies desire to build a story bigger than just the tapes of a sadistic killer. They give him what I found to be a silly mythology about his ability to create different profiles and what not. I found it silly but I could accept it. What I couldn't accept was an absurd plot twist that involved a framed cop and 9/11. At that point the filmmakers were just creating way too much fucking story. And bad story at that.
There's very little nudity and no titillation whatsoever.
In the end it's a fair idea, that gets wrapped up in too much plot without enough quality acting, and not much gore to speak of. The biggest criticism I can give the movie is that it's just sort of boring.
Poughkeepsie? More like PoughDontsee.
2010 Horror Fest: The Devil's Chair: 46 Out Of 100 Stars
The Devil's Chair is a movie that has a great idea, and that idea is played out masterfully. The problem is that it's about 15 minutes worth idea surrounded by 75 minutes of nothing all that great.
A man is in a mental institution for years after being discovered in an old abandoned building, covered in blood, with a girlfriend that's gone missing. The assumption is that he killed her, his story is that she sat in a demonic chair that ripped her to shreds and took her to another dimension.
After many years, a well respected doctor takes the patient under his wing and returns with him to the scene of the crime to help clear the man of his false memories and help progress his therapy. They are joined by 3 associates of the doctor, 2 female and 1 dude.
From there I'll say no more except that the unfolding of the story came in a twist that left me amused and blown away with its awesomeness. The problem is that after the twist, the actual content still isn't all that fun to watch.
The film is confusing. Most of the performances are schlocky, but revelations suggest they're meant to be. The question then is does that make them any less boring to watch? Not really.
The story is told in the style of Lock, Stock and Snatch. Scenes freeze while the main character provides voice over.
I actually bumped the rating up about 10 points the more I let the twist sink in. I can't quite say that it's worth sitting through, but at the same time it is interesting enough to want to see peoples reactions to it. I dunno.
For what the opening scene delivered, the film really doesn't follow through with a lot of gore or nudity, although it does seem at times like we're going to get some grade A ass. It just never really materializes.
The Devil's Chair provides an interesting question. If a movie is designed to be pedestrian in order to suck you in, what happens when it works?
A man is in a mental institution for years after being discovered in an old abandoned building, covered in blood, with a girlfriend that's gone missing. The assumption is that he killed her, his story is that she sat in a demonic chair that ripped her to shreds and took her to another dimension.
After many years, a well respected doctor takes the patient under his wing and returns with him to the scene of the crime to help clear the man of his false memories and help progress his therapy. They are joined by 3 associates of the doctor, 2 female and 1 dude.
From there I'll say no more except that the unfolding of the story came in a twist that left me amused and blown away with its awesomeness. The problem is that after the twist, the actual content still isn't all that fun to watch.
The film is confusing. Most of the performances are schlocky, but revelations suggest they're meant to be. The question then is does that make them any less boring to watch? Not really.
The story is told in the style of Lock, Stock and Snatch. Scenes freeze while the main character provides voice over.
I actually bumped the rating up about 10 points the more I let the twist sink in. I can't quite say that it's worth sitting through, but at the same time it is interesting enough to want to see peoples reactions to it. I dunno.
For what the opening scene delivered, the film really doesn't follow through with a lot of gore or nudity, although it does seem at times like we're going to get some grade A ass. It just never really materializes.
The Devil's Chair provides an interesting question. If a movie is designed to be pedestrian in order to suck you in, what happens when it works?
2010 Horror Fest: The Wizzard Of Gore: 71 Out Of 100 Stars
A film that weaves a tangled web of dreams, hallucinations, flashbacks and mysteries, up until the point it can no longer bear it's own weight, and sort of collapses in on itself in the final 10-15 minutes. But till then is carried by wonderful performances by Kip Pardue, Bijou Phillips and Crispin Glover.
I can't tell you very much about the story without giving too much away, so let's just say that it's one of those movies that lives on making you wonder exactly what the fuck is happening. Is this real? Was that real? Who did that? Did that even really happen?
Those kind of movies are often let downs in the end, because inside we know that no rational answer can be as awesome as the question posed. I was waiting for a letdown at the end, and I was sort of let down, but not enough to take away from the joy that was delivered leading up to that point.
The script is fucked up, and fun, and intricate, and the cast is so very awesome. The gore is wicked fun and the cinematography and direction works so well in conjunction with the story being told.
Forgive the corner The Wizzard Of Gore paints itself into, and instead focus on how pretty the rest of the canvas is and you'll have a joyous time with this film.
I can't tell you very much about the story without giving too much away, so let's just say that it's one of those movies that lives on making you wonder exactly what the fuck is happening. Is this real? Was that real? Who did that? Did that even really happen?
Those kind of movies are often let downs in the end, because inside we know that no rational answer can be as awesome as the question posed. I was waiting for a letdown at the end, and I was sort of let down, but not enough to take away from the joy that was delivered leading up to that point.
The script is fucked up, and fun, and intricate, and the cast is so very awesome. The gore is wicked fun and the cinematography and direction works so well in conjunction with the story being told.
Forgive the corner The Wizzard Of Gore paints itself into, and instead focus on how pretty the rest of the canvas is and you'll have a joyous time with this film.
2010 Horror Fest: The Lost Skeleton Of Cadavra: 60 Out Of 100 Stars
From the same man, and largely the same cast of, Dark And Stormy Night, we have another send up of old, bad monster movies. The kind you used to watch as a kid that managed to always somehow involve quicksand.
I will say this about this movie, for a film I'm only giving a slightly above average rating to, it's very funny. The problem lies in that the joke is repeated over and over. It's very much a one note film, which causes it to drag instead of sparkle.
The premise is this, A man is looking for the lost skeleton, unfortunately he needs Atmospherum to revive the skeleton. Luckily for him a meteor full of Atmospherum crashes nearby. At the same time, an alien couple crashes their spaceship in the same area, and they too need Atmospherum to fuel their ship. Oh, their pet mutant escaped during the crash. Two other main players, A Scientist and his wife, are vacationing in the same woods.
Dark And Stormy Night worked because it was so frenetic, the word play that was hit or miss there worked better because it came at a constant pace and if one joke didn't work, there was another one coming right away. Here things are much slower, and the jokes hang there longer, causing more than enough dead spots despite some really strong laughs.
The acting is all top notch and the film looks, feels and sounds like one of those old cheese fests on your local syndicated station.
I think your mileage may vary depending on how engaged you are with the tone of the film. If you don't tire of the joke you'll probably have a much funner time watching this then I did, not that I didn't enjoy it.
At times feeling too much like watching the actual thing, The Lost Skeleton Of Cadavra is a pleasant spoof that tends to get bogged down in it's own satire.
I will say this about this movie, for a film I'm only giving a slightly above average rating to, it's very funny. The problem lies in that the joke is repeated over and over. It's very much a one note film, which causes it to drag instead of sparkle.
The premise is this, A man is looking for the lost skeleton, unfortunately he needs Atmospherum to revive the skeleton. Luckily for him a meteor full of Atmospherum crashes nearby. At the same time, an alien couple crashes their spaceship in the same area, and they too need Atmospherum to fuel their ship. Oh, their pet mutant escaped during the crash. Two other main players, A Scientist and his wife, are vacationing in the same woods.
Dark And Stormy Night worked because it was so frenetic, the word play that was hit or miss there worked better because it came at a constant pace and if one joke didn't work, there was another one coming right away. Here things are much slower, and the jokes hang there longer, causing more than enough dead spots despite some really strong laughs.
The acting is all top notch and the film looks, feels and sounds like one of those old cheese fests on your local syndicated station.
I think your mileage may vary depending on how engaged you are with the tone of the film. If you don't tire of the joke you'll probably have a much funner time watching this then I did, not that I didn't enjoy it.
At times feeling too much like watching the actual thing, The Lost Skeleton Of Cadavra is a pleasant spoof that tends to get bogged down in it's own satire.
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
2010 Horror Fest: Friday The 13th Part 10: 35 Out Of 100 Stars
Jason X would come out almost a decade after the last film, and ignore the mythology of the previous two films, and maybe more. It's pretty undeterminded when this is supposed to pick up, if it's even connected to them at all.
So Jason has been caught, but the government, no matter what they do, just can't kill him. So they decide to Cryogenicly freeze him.
400 years pass and the Earth has pretty much been torched. A scientific expedition from space finds Jason frozen deep in an underground laboratory and unwittingly load him on to their ship. The head scientist knows who Jason is and is excited at the prospect of selling him to a collector.
Unfortunately for the crew, Jason thaws out, and all hell breaks loose in outer space.
Ok, so the premise has some potential as a stand alone movie. And once you get past the premise, let us just judge the movie on it's own.
It has some cool kills, a flash frozen face that gets smashed to pieces is the coup de graux. The chicks are pretty hot and there is some decent nudity, but all in all the film just comes off as a bit too silly and contrived, even given that they're in space.
The movie suffers a bit from Buck Rogers syndrome in that we're supposed to accept the fact that they have all this technology to travel through space, to restore lost limbs and almost instantly heal wounds, but almost all other aspects of their technology seem to be stuck in modern times. This was ok an a show like Buck Rogers that was made in 1980, but here it just creates a bunch of plot holes and questions that become a distraction.
For all the space bells and galactic whistles, it still whittles down to a chase and kill movie, where it would seem a laser beam or two could solve the problem, but alas we're given a lot of machine gun, pistol and hand to hand combat. Even more disappointing is that the hottest chick in the movie gets killed pretty quickly.
There's the usual false finishes that don't add a lot of tension.
The idea of Jason in futuristic space has promise, but for reasons either creative or fiscal, we don't really get a good version of that.
A flawed attempt at a comeback, Jason X is more of a Jason Y?
So Jason has been caught, but the government, no matter what they do, just can't kill him. So they decide to Cryogenicly freeze him.
400 years pass and the Earth has pretty much been torched. A scientific expedition from space finds Jason frozen deep in an underground laboratory and unwittingly load him on to their ship. The head scientist knows who Jason is and is excited at the prospect of selling him to a collector.
Unfortunately for the crew, Jason thaws out, and all hell breaks loose in outer space.
Ok, so the premise has some potential as a stand alone movie. And once you get past the premise, let us just judge the movie on it's own.
It has some cool kills, a flash frozen face that gets smashed to pieces is the coup de graux. The chicks are pretty hot and there is some decent nudity, but all in all the film just comes off as a bit too silly and contrived, even given that they're in space.
The movie suffers a bit from Buck Rogers syndrome in that we're supposed to accept the fact that they have all this technology to travel through space, to restore lost limbs and almost instantly heal wounds, but almost all other aspects of their technology seem to be stuck in modern times. This was ok an a show like Buck Rogers that was made in 1980, but here it just creates a bunch of plot holes and questions that become a distraction.
For all the space bells and galactic whistles, it still whittles down to a chase and kill movie, where it would seem a laser beam or two could solve the problem, but alas we're given a lot of machine gun, pistol and hand to hand combat. Even more disappointing is that the hottest chick in the movie gets killed pretty quickly.
There's the usual false finishes that don't add a lot of tension.
The idea of Jason in futuristic space has promise, but for reasons either creative or fiscal, we don't really get a good version of that.
A flawed attempt at a comeback, Jason X is more of a Jason Y?
2010 Horror Fest: Friday The 13th Part 9: 32 Out Of 100 Stars
So 4 years since the last movie ostensibly killed the franchise, the original guy bought the rights back in an attempt to make a Freddy Vs Jason movie. When those talks stalled he dished out this baby as a placeholder, a way to keep the series alive.
Right away we have some of the old magic back as it takes no time at all for some excellent tension shots and jump scares. Also a smokin hot chick gets buck naked for us. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
When Jason shows up to off the damsel, we find out it's been a set up by the government to lure him out. A little out there. but ok.
Jason gets blown to kingdom come which sets up the main plot of the movie, the idea that Jason is pure evil incarnate and can use different bodies. I'm really not digging this direction but we do have the black dude from 21 Jump Street playing a kickass bounty hunter and ERIN FUCKING GRAY playing the last Vorhees relative. It's weird, back when this came out I was disappointed by how Erin looked, but watching it now she's still bonerific. She's like a MILF version of herself. Mmmm.
Ok, so this movie is a total enigma. On one hand it features the best visuals of the series, hands down. The gore is off the charts and the special effects are fucking mighty. It's gross as all get out, in a fun way.
It also features plenty of nudity, some good sex and an overall devil may care attitude that invokes memories of the earlier films.
The problem is that the plot is just so silly. Jasons heart being eaten, the "soul" of Jason passing from one guy to the next, none of whom look the least bit terrifying in their own right. The leads are also badly dated, although I don't imagine they were all that great back then either. The Bounty Hunter making shit up as he goes along about the Jason legend falls very flat. Hell, the first time the big bad bounty hunter has to do anything, he's totally ineffective.
There's a scene near the end of the movie where a crate labeled "Antartic Expedition" is shown, which I dunno if that was supposed to be a clue that Jason is actually some sort of creature brought back from there or what, my head was hurting at this point.
Jason hopping from human portal to human portal via tongue kiss is silly, but not near as silly as near the end of the movie, when a tiny creature emerges from one of those portals and hops around like something out of "Critters".
It's really just too silly and dumb to hate on that much, but certainly not good on any level. Add in silly characters and boring leads and you've got a big mess with some strong visual moments, callbacks to better movies that keep it from being a total waste.
The last scene should have been an iconic moment, but at the point it arrives I'm not sure too many people still had the heart to care.
For a movie meant as a placeholder, I can't wrap my head around why they kicked up so many bells and whistles and plot gadgets and unnecessary mythology. Ignore part 8 and just have Jason kill campers for Christs sakes. It almost feels like forces were pulling this is in two different creative directions which is why it ends up such a hot mess.
Fundamentally flawed, Friday fizzles yet again.
Right away we have some of the old magic back as it takes no time at all for some excellent tension shots and jump scares. Also a smokin hot chick gets buck naked for us. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
When Jason shows up to off the damsel, we find out it's been a set up by the government to lure him out. A little out there. but ok.
Jason gets blown to kingdom come which sets up the main plot of the movie, the idea that Jason is pure evil incarnate and can use different bodies. I'm really not digging this direction but we do have the black dude from 21 Jump Street playing a kickass bounty hunter and ERIN FUCKING GRAY playing the last Vorhees relative. It's weird, back when this came out I was disappointed by how Erin looked, but watching it now she's still bonerific. She's like a MILF version of herself. Mmmm.
Ok, so this movie is a total enigma. On one hand it features the best visuals of the series, hands down. The gore is off the charts and the special effects are fucking mighty. It's gross as all get out, in a fun way.
It also features plenty of nudity, some good sex and an overall devil may care attitude that invokes memories of the earlier films.
The problem is that the plot is just so silly. Jasons heart being eaten, the "soul" of Jason passing from one guy to the next, none of whom look the least bit terrifying in their own right. The leads are also badly dated, although I don't imagine they were all that great back then either. The Bounty Hunter making shit up as he goes along about the Jason legend falls very flat. Hell, the first time the big bad bounty hunter has to do anything, he's totally ineffective.
There's a scene near the end of the movie where a crate labeled "Antartic Expedition" is shown, which I dunno if that was supposed to be a clue that Jason is actually some sort of creature brought back from there or what, my head was hurting at this point.
Jason hopping from human portal to human portal via tongue kiss is silly, but not near as silly as near the end of the movie, when a tiny creature emerges from one of those portals and hops around like something out of "Critters".
It's really just too silly and dumb to hate on that much, but certainly not good on any level. Add in silly characters and boring leads and you've got a big mess with some strong visual moments, callbacks to better movies that keep it from being a total waste.
The last scene should have been an iconic moment, but at the point it arrives I'm not sure too many people still had the heart to care.
For a movie meant as a placeholder, I can't wrap my head around why they kicked up so many bells and whistles and plot gadgets and unnecessary mythology. Ignore part 8 and just have Jason kill campers for Christs sakes. It almost feels like forces were pulling this is in two different creative directions which is why it ends up such a hot mess.
Fundamentally flawed, Friday fizzles yet again.
2010 Horror Fest: Friday The 13th Part 8: 0 Out Of 100 Stars
I gotta say, for all the shit I've watched over the years, this may be the single most absurd and poorly designed movie I've encountered.
What does this movie give us?
A class of what appears to be 10 students, who are treated to a graduation trip to Manhattan from Central New Jersey, VIA BOAT.
A lead heroin who wants to be a horror writer, but is afraid of water but doesn't know why, or won't tell us why, or won't tell anyone why.
There are only two teachers on the trip, one of which is the troubled girls Uncle, who is as about as wooden as someone who's always angry can be. It's a mesmerizing thing to watch for sure.
The other teacher is some sort of mentor to our heroin, she even gave her a pen that Stephen King wrote with, as a graduation present.
The ships captain is something right out of Moby Dick. Of course his son is one of the students and the kid is just not the sailor that dad is, which disappoints them both. What kind of fucking drugs were passed around the writing room on this son of a bitch?
A ship that appears to be half freighter, half luxury cruise liner, depending on what the scene calls for.
A rocker girl who walks around with her electric guitar that is never plugged into anything but still emits a sound like some sort of Motley Crue cover band.
A dweeb film student who's always walking around with a camera.
A bunch of faceless jocks who spend the first night on a graduation cruise in a gym about 4 feet wide "boxing".
And best of all, a deckhand who seems to know Jason somehow made it down river and is on the boat, but only pops up at random times to tell everyone they're doomed.
I am dead serious when I say that everyone involved with the script for this abortion should be fucking killed. People this stupid should not be allowed to live.
Ok, so the girl, I don't know her name and I don't care, she keeps seeing visions of a boy drowning and begging her for help. I hope this is not going where I think I remember it going.
The best character in the movie is Uncle Charles. Wearing a smoking jacket and running around as people are being killed, but constantly yelling at everyone and doing his best dinner theater level acting. He even has a wonderous scene with the films resident snobby rich girl where he commands her to go to her room and get her Biology project. Yes, he's asking for homework on a graduation cruise somewhere off the Jersey shore. This film is just going out of it's way to make less and less sense.
Anyway, the captains son, who I also can't be assed to learn the name of, he and the troubled girl of course have some sort of chemistry and he's trying to help her stay alive while Uncle Charles is yelling at him to stay away from his niece.
The scenes are such a hodgepodge of underwhelming kills, hysterical declarations, and running from place to place.
At one point, about 50 minutes into the movie the lady teacher brings a gaggle of extras into a room and tells them to stay there. I guess this was to show that the class has 12 instead of 8 students.
There's a shot of the boat in the middle of an ocean and I'm wondering WHERE THE FUCK THIS BOAT IS!!?
Once it's clear they need to abandon ship, we're treated to a high budget shot of the remaining cast climbing into a rowboat in front of what is clearly just a fucking wall. They somehow climbed down a rope ladder in the middle of a storm with a fucking dog who isn't shown at all until they're all in the boat. He just appears out of nowhere.
So after this harrowing ordeal they row to NYC and Uncle Charles complains about where they docked the rowboat. Listen, at this point it's like he's not even a character in the fucking movie. He's just this fucking thing the writers conjured up to spout one liners. He serves no purpose at all, has zero basis in reality and ARGGHGHGHG. I mean it's fucking insulting is what it is. This whole fucking thing is insulting.
Of course they don't make it 10 feet in the city before being robbed at gunpoint. The lead girl is then dragged away from the group to be raped while they stand around looking.......frightened? I can't quite tell. They have these looks on their faces like that Ben Stiller character, the one who makes all the faces, I dunno. Anyway, this movie is becoming the equivalent of what the baby in A Serbian Film must of felt like when it was being raped.
So when his niece gets dragged away to be raped, what does Uncle Charles do? Well he holds back the black kid from trying to save her, tells him they need to find the police and that the best way to do that is to split up. To split up. To split up.
Everyone runs off in a different direction as I become more and more convinced that this movie was written by monkeys. Not even normal monkeys, like retarded monkeys.
Jason chases the black kid to the top of a building where the kid (foreshadowed brilliantly in the earlier scene where they all decided to box for no real reason) elects to go mano a mano with Jason. This scene last a good 45 minutes as the kid just hits Jason over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over. I'll let you guess who wins the fight.
The girl meanwhile get away from the thugs but keeps having visions of the drowning boy, but each time she seems him he's more and more mutilated. Finally she has the grand reveal flashback where she remembers that as a little kid, Uncle Charles took her out on Crystal Lake and threw her in the water to force her to swim. Only when she was in the water Jason grabbed her and tried to pull her under. Only problem is it wasn't adult Jason but little kid Jason, totally fucking with the timeline of the series and making about as much sense as sticking your dick in a blender.
So Guy, I'm just gonna call him Guy from now on. He finds Girl sitting in an EZ Chair in an alley, just contemplating life and shit, chilling out. Jason chases them down into the subway and onto the train and up into Times Square. Then it's through a restaurant and down into the sewer where a worker informs them that in 10 minutes the sewers get flooded with toxic waste. The very idea of sitting through 10 more minutes of this made me upchuck some toxic waste of my own.
The end? Well yes, the sewer does in fact get flooded with toxic waste as the two kids hang on to a ladder for dear life. But poor Jason drowns in the muck. And when it clears what is left you ask? A little boy. A perfectly normal little boy who appears to be breathing. I can only surmise that a large portion of Colombia's drug exports this year went to the people making this movie. There is not a font large enough to put the letters WTF into.
This is without a doubt one of the single most wretched movies I have ever seen. The script is horrific in it's inability to make any sense at all. The two leads are the worst in the series. And Uncle Charles? I want to rape Uncle Charles. I mean, the film isn't fun to make fun of. Nothing is funny per se, the actors are too wooden and the advancement too by the numbers. To be this god awful and still not be able to find joy in it's awfulness is just......awful.
The kills are standard issue at best. None of the killees were worth caring about it their own right, so when they're time came it just didn't matter. The gore is also average at best.
Without a doubt one of the biggest blunders in cinematic history, this fucker killed the franchise, I mean killed it dead. It would be 4 years until the next installment and if I recall correctly that one made almost no splash upon release. I think it even completely ignored this film in the timeline.
What a sad, pathetic way to end the original run of a series that provided some of the best horror movies ever. I hope everyone involved with this turd died a gruesome death.
What does this movie give us?
A class of what appears to be 10 students, who are treated to a graduation trip to Manhattan from Central New Jersey, VIA BOAT.
A lead heroin who wants to be a horror writer, but is afraid of water but doesn't know why, or won't tell us why, or won't tell anyone why.
There are only two teachers on the trip, one of which is the troubled girls Uncle, who is as about as wooden as someone who's always angry can be. It's a mesmerizing thing to watch for sure.
The other teacher is some sort of mentor to our heroin, she even gave her a pen that Stephen King wrote with, as a graduation present.
The ships captain is something right out of Moby Dick. Of course his son is one of the students and the kid is just not the sailor that dad is, which disappoints them both. What kind of fucking drugs were passed around the writing room on this son of a bitch?
A ship that appears to be half freighter, half luxury cruise liner, depending on what the scene calls for.
A rocker girl who walks around with her electric guitar that is never plugged into anything but still emits a sound like some sort of Motley Crue cover band.
A dweeb film student who's always walking around with a camera.
A bunch of faceless jocks who spend the first night on a graduation cruise in a gym about 4 feet wide "boxing".
And best of all, a deckhand who seems to know Jason somehow made it down river and is on the boat, but only pops up at random times to tell everyone they're doomed.
I am dead serious when I say that everyone involved with the script for this abortion should be fucking killed. People this stupid should not be allowed to live.
Ok, so the girl, I don't know her name and I don't care, she keeps seeing visions of a boy drowning and begging her for help. I hope this is not going where I think I remember it going.
The best character in the movie is Uncle Charles. Wearing a smoking jacket and running around as people are being killed, but constantly yelling at everyone and doing his best dinner theater level acting. He even has a wonderous scene with the films resident snobby rich girl where he commands her to go to her room and get her Biology project. Yes, he's asking for homework on a graduation cruise somewhere off the Jersey shore. This film is just going out of it's way to make less and less sense.
Anyway, the captains son, who I also can't be assed to learn the name of, he and the troubled girl of course have some sort of chemistry and he's trying to help her stay alive while Uncle Charles is yelling at him to stay away from his niece.
The scenes are such a hodgepodge of underwhelming kills, hysterical declarations, and running from place to place.
At one point, about 50 minutes into the movie the lady teacher brings a gaggle of extras into a room and tells them to stay there. I guess this was to show that the class has 12 instead of 8 students.
There's a shot of the boat in the middle of an ocean and I'm wondering WHERE THE FUCK THIS BOAT IS!!?
Once it's clear they need to abandon ship, we're treated to a high budget shot of the remaining cast climbing into a rowboat in front of what is clearly just a fucking wall. They somehow climbed down a rope ladder in the middle of a storm with a fucking dog who isn't shown at all until they're all in the boat. He just appears out of nowhere.
So after this harrowing ordeal they row to NYC and Uncle Charles complains about where they docked the rowboat. Listen, at this point it's like he's not even a character in the fucking movie. He's just this fucking thing the writers conjured up to spout one liners. He serves no purpose at all, has zero basis in reality and ARGGHGHGHG. I mean it's fucking insulting is what it is. This whole fucking thing is insulting.
Of course they don't make it 10 feet in the city before being robbed at gunpoint. The lead girl is then dragged away from the group to be raped while they stand around looking.......frightened? I can't quite tell. They have these looks on their faces like that Ben Stiller character, the one who makes all the faces, I dunno. Anyway, this movie is becoming the equivalent of what the baby in A Serbian Film must of felt like when it was being raped.
So when his niece gets dragged away to be raped, what does Uncle Charles do? Well he holds back the black kid from trying to save her, tells him they need to find the police and that the best way to do that is to split up. To split up. To split up.
Everyone runs off in a different direction as I become more and more convinced that this movie was written by monkeys. Not even normal monkeys, like retarded monkeys.
Jason chases the black kid to the top of a building where the kid (foreshadowed brilliantly in the earlier scene where they all decided to box for no real reason) elects to go mano a mano with Jason. This scene last a good 45 minutes as the kid just hits Jason over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over. I'll let you guess who wins the fight.
The girl meanwhile get away from the thugs but keeps having visions of the drowning boy, but each time she seems him he's more and more mutilated. Finally she has the grand reveal flashback where she remembers that as a little kid, Uncle Charles took her out on Crystal Lake and threw her in the water to force her to swim. Only when she was in the water Jason grabbed her and tried to pull her under. Only problem is it wasn't adult Jason but little kid Jason, totally fucking with the timeline of the series and making about as much sense as sticking your dick in a blender.
So Guy, I'm just gonna call him Guy from now on. He finds Girl sitting in an EZ Chair in an alley, just contemplating life and shit, chilling out. Jason chases them down into the subway and onto the train and up into Times Square. Then it's through a restaurant and down into the sewer where a worker informs them that in 10 minutes the sewers get flooded with toxic waste. The very idea of sitting through 10 more minutes of this made me upchuck some toxic waste of my own.
The end? Well yes, the sewer does in fact get flooded with toxic waste as the two kids hang on to a ladder for dear life. But poor Jason drowns in the muck. And when it clears what is left you ask? A little boy. A perfectly normal little boy who appears to be breathing. I can only surmise that a large portion of Colombia's drug exports this year went to the people making this movie. There is not a font large enough to put the letters WTF into.
This is without a doubt one of the single most wretched movies I have ever seen. The script is horrific in it's inability to make any sense at all. The two leads are the worst in the series. And Uncle Charles? I want to rape Uncle Charles. I mean, the film isn't fun to make fun of. Nothing is funny per se, the actors are too wooden and the advancement too by the numbers. To be this god awful and still not be able to find joy in it's awfulness is just......awful.
The kills are standard issue at best. None of the killees were worth caring about it their own right, so when they're time came it just didn't matter. The gore is also average at best.
Without a doubt one of the biggest blunders in cinematic history, this fucker killed the franchise, I mean killed it dead. It would be 4 years until the next installment and if I recall correctly that one made almost no splash upon release. I think it even completely ignored this film in the timeline.
What a sad, pathetic way to end the original run of a series that provided some of the best horror movies ever. I hope everyone involved with this turd died a gruesome death.
2010 Horror Fest: Friday The 13th Part 7: 30 Out Of 100 Stars
Part 7, titled, The New Blood, would come out 20 months after part 6, the longest stretch between movies since parts 3 and 4 (although part 3 did have a 3D release in the year between it was first released, and part 4 came out). Essentialy, 1987 was the first year that didn't feature a cinematic release of a Friday The 13th movie since 1980.
I'm not sure of the reason for the break. Box office returns had been declining ever since part 3, with a sharp drop off for the 5th and 6th installments.
We open with a little girl running out of her cabin where dad has just smacked mom down. The little girl gets in a boat and goes out to the middle of the lake. When dad comes out on the dock and implores her to come back in, she says she hates him and wishes he was dead, then she makes a cheesy face as we're led to believe she has some sort of mind control powers that cause the dock to crumble, sending daddy to a watery grave where Jason would join him at some point in the future.
Now a teenager, Tina still hasn't gotten over what happened that night, and just like Tommy, has been in a mental institution for a spell. Her doctor thinks it would be a good idea to return to the site of where her dad died because it's the only way left he knows how to help her.
So there's the setup. My first thought back then was that it was cool, I loved the Tina character as a kid. My first thought now is that it was a terribly goofy direction to go in, but I'll let it play out. Oh yeah, when Tina, her mom, and the doctor arrive at Camp Crystal Lake, there's already a group of teenagers hanging out at the cabin next door waiting for their friend to show up for his surprise party.
So the snivly doctor seems more interested in tapping into Tinas telekinetic powers than helping her get over her fathers death. When he pushes her too far, she runs out of the cabin and onto the docks where she senses a presence, and thinking it's her father, tries to will it back to life. Big mistake.
Alright, rather then bore you with anymore details, let's just say that this baby is a giant turd.
I was hoping that it would overcome the goofy premise but it doesn't, not at all. The idea of a girl with psychic ability as Jasons main foil just comes off silly.
Besides that point, almost everything else the series has ever done right, it does wrong here. The Jason fodder is rather bland and just out in the woods to be out in the woods, the kills are dull and hardly gory at all.
The teenagers next door all look like extras from the Cosby Show, which makes it kind of creepy when we see some of them naked, not that I didn't appreciate that they threw in some tits and ass but it's all so uniform and by the numbers. Stuff just happens because it's supposed to happen rather than feeling organic in any way. There is a nice skinny dipping scene where we get an underwater twat shot, that while appreciated, again feels like it was just thrown in for the sake of having it there.
The dialog, the characters, all cheese. It's sort of baffling to think that they took 2 years to make this movie and this was the best they could come up with. As I said earlier, none of the kills are all that great. Hell, most of em aren't even shown. A laughable moment occurs when Jason, in the middle of the woods, shows up with a gas powered saw, the kill with which isn't shown. A lot of this shit left me scratching my head.
The final scene features Jasons mask coming off, and while it scared the fuck out of me as a kid, the clear animatronics in the close ups just left giggling now.
The ending is beyond stupid. Words can't even describe how stupid.
Easily the worst film of the bunch, it doesn't even have the atmosphere to save it. Everything is wrong here. Everything.
So yeah. I had high hopes for this one based off my recollections as a kid, but god damn is this awful. Up next is Jason Takes Manhattan, which I remember not wanting to see as a kid just because it sounded so fucking corny. I think I saw it once and that's it, so maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised but I'm fairly certain the cliff has already been fallen off of.
The New Blood is tainted and the patient is dyeing.
I'm not sure of the reason for the break. Box office returns had been declining ever since part 3, with a sharp drop off for the 5th and 6th installments.
We open with a little girl running out of her cabin where dad has just smacked mom down. The little girl gets in a boat and goes out to the middle of the lake. When dad comes out on the dock and implores her to come back in, she says she hates him and wishes he was dead, then she makes a cheesy face as we're led to believe she has some sort of mind control powers that cause the dock to crumble, sending daddy to a watery grave where Jason would join him at some point in the future.
Now a teenager, Tina still hasn't gotten over what happened that night, and just like Tommy, has been in a mental institution for a spell. Her doctor thinks it would be a good idea to return to the site of where her dad died because it's the only way left he knows how to help her.
So there's the setup. My first thought back then was that it was cool, I loved the Tina character as a kid. My first thought now is that it was a terribly goofy direction to go in, but I'll let it play out. Oh yeah, when Tina, her mom, and the doctor arrive at Camp Crystal Lake, there's already a group of teenagers hanging out at the cabin next door waiting for their friend to show up for his surprise party.
So the snivly doctor seems more interested in tapping into Tinas telekinetic powers than helping her get over her fathers death. When he pushes her too far, she runs out of the cabin and onto the docks where she senses a presence, and thinking it's her father, tries to will it back to life. Big mistake.
Alright, rather then bore you with anymore details, let's just say that this baby is a giant turd.
I was hoping that it would overcome the goofy premise but it doesn't, not at all. The idea of a girl with psychic ability as Jasons main foil just comes off silly.
Besides that point, almost everything else the series has ever done right, it does wrong here. The Jason fodder is rather bland and just out in the woods to be out in the woods, the kills are dull and hardly gory at all.
The teenagers next door all look like extras from the Cosby Show, which makes it kind of creepy when we see some of them naked, not that I didn't appreciate that they threw in some tits and ass but it's all so uniform and by the numbers. Stuff just happens because it's supposed to happen rather than feeling organic in any way. There is a nice skinny dipping scene where we get an underwater twat shot, that while appreciated, again feels like it was just thrown in for the sake of having it there.
The dialog, the characters, all cheese. It's sort of baffling to think that they took 2 years to make this movie and this was the best they could come up with. As I said earlier, none of the kills are all that great. Hell, most of em aren't even shown. A laughable moment occurs when Jason, in the middle of the woods, shows up with a gas powered saw, the kill with which isn't shown. A lot of this shit left me scratching my head.
The final scene features Jasons mask coming off, and while it scared the fuck out of me as a kid, the clear animatronics in the close ups just left giggling now.
The ending is beyond stupid. Words can't even describe how stupid.
Easily the worst film of the bunch, it doesn't even have the atmosphere to save it. Everything is wrong here. Everything.
So yeah. I had high hopes for this one based off my recollections as a kid, but god damn is this awful. Up next is Jason Takes Manhattan, which I remember not wanting to see as a kid just because it sounded so fucking corny. I think I saw it once and that's it, so maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised but I'm fairly certain the cliff has already been fallen off of.
The New Blood is tainted and the patient is dyeing.
2010 Horror Fest: Friday The 13th Part 6: 72 Out Of 100 Stars
Part 6 is subtitled "Jason Lives" and takes no time in showing us how he lives, or setting up the story for the movie. Seriously, they spend 10 minutes getting Jason back into the fold in a goofy but imaginative way. Tommy is back for the third straight movie (this time played by cleaner cut, All-American type. Corey Feldman only wishes he grew up this cute).His plans to put Jason to rest for good go awry thanks to an iron rod and a bolt of lightning.
It's been many years since Jasons death and the town has been renamed, Camp Crystal Lake is opening back up. The only problem is that the head counselors have gone missing. Tommy tries to convince both the Sheriff and his daughter, who is working at the camp, that Jason is on the loose again.
Fun fucking subplots with a bunch of weekend warrior paintballers who are in the wrong fucking place at the wrong fucking time. A couple out for a midnight fuck, who do indeed get fucked, and a crotchety old caretaker afraid of losing his job when he should be more afraid of losing his internal organs.
Once again the makers excel in giving us characters who's purpose is to be Jason fodder, but give us just enough time with them that they're entertaining in their own right.
Meghan, the sheriffs daughter, and Tommy, form a bond right away with her believing his story while her dad is sure that Tommy is the one responsible for all the trouble. From there all hell ensues as everyone eventually gets on the same page, but by then it's too late, leading to the final scene where Jason may or not be laid to rest permanently again.
Ok, so here's the deal. The movie works on a few levels. Firstly, this may be the best concentration of awesome kills in any movie ever. Secondly, gore is off the charts wicked. Shit had me cringing at times. The tension is also high, with a lot of jump scares that had me legit buggin.
The problem with the movie is that the Tommy character is fairly weak this time around. He bears no resemblance to the deranged ass kicker in part 5 and is written and played as just a little too goofy. Meghan suffers the same faults only to a more annoying extent as she seems to not be bothered at all by the potential for this guy she just met to be a killer, cause she'd rather flirt with him and have a wild time. The movie gets away with being goofy but I wish the main storyline and the actors in it had come off as more convincing, leave the goofy shit to the rest of the film.
The counselor chicks, Meghan included, just aren't all that hot. Their characters have gone from mid 80's, show your tits for any reason types, to late 80's teeny bopper types. And there's no nudity, so that's a big drawback.
As a standalone slasher flick, it's as solid as they come. As a continuation to the series it's a bit of a step backwards that I'm not sure it would ever recover from.
It's a Fun, Frightening Friday, but not a Fantastic one.
It's been many years since Jasons death and the town has been renamed, Camp Crystal Lake is opening back up. The only problem is that the head counselors have gone missing. Tommy tries to convince both the Sheriff and his daughter, who is working at the camp, that Jason is on the loose again.
Fun fucking subplots with a bunch of weekend warrior paintballers who are in the wrong fucking place at the wrong fucking time. A couple out for a midnight fuck, who do indeed get fucked, and a crotchety old caretaker afraid of losing his job when he should be more afraid of losing his internal organs.
Once again the makers excel in giving us characters who's purpose is to be Jason fodder, but give us just enough time with them that they're entertaining in their own right.
Meghan, the sheriffs daughter, and Tommy, form a bond right away with her believing his story while her dad is sure that Tommy is the one responsible for all the trouble. From there all hell ensues as everyone eventually gets on the same page, but by then it's too late, leading to the final scene where Jason may or not be laid to rest permanently again.
Ok, so here's the deal. The movie works on a few levels. Firstly, this may be the best concentration of awesome kills in any movie ever. Secondly, gore is off the charts wicked. Shit had me cringing at times. The tension is also high, with a lot of jump scares that had me legit buggin.
The problem with the movie is that the Tommy character is fairly weak this time around. He bears no resemblance to the deranged ass kicker in part 5 and is written and played as just a little too goofy. Meghan suffers the same faults only to a more annoying extent as she seems to not be bothered at all by the potential for this guy she just met to be a killer, cause she'd rather flirt with him and have a wild time. The movie gets away with being goofy but I wish the main storyline and the actors in it had come off as more convincing, leave the goofy shit to the rest of the film.
The counselor chicks, Meghan included, just aren't all that hot. Their characters have gone from mid 80's, show your tits for any reason types, to late 80's teeny bopper types. And there's no nudity, so that's a big drawback.
As a standalone slasher flick, it's as solid as they come. As a continuation to the series it's a bit of a step backwards that I'm not sure it would ever recover from.
It's a Fun, Frightening Friday, but not a Fantastic one.
2010 Horror Fest: Friday The 13th Part 5: 82 Out Of 100 Stars
Part five starts with a now teenage Tommy having a bad dream about Jason as he's being shipped to a mental halfway house out in the middle of nowhere. I loved the days when people thought it was fine to send nutso kids to the middle of nowhere with 2 adults to supervise them.
The place is run by the guy who I swear initiated the sexy gang rape of Jodie Foster in The Accused. He has a female assistant who's fairly fetching.
Tommy is clearly disturbed, but then who wouldn't be? He is brought out of his shell a little bit by, wait for it, DUDLEY!! Fuck yeah. Dudleys grandpa is wise old negro cook. The other residents of the nuthouse are a semi retarded fat dude who's always walking with candy bars in every pocket, eating and haphazardly letting shit drip all down his chin. Maybe he's Shelleys younger brother. A punk rock chick with streaks of coal in her hair, a stutterer, the cool couple, a thug with jeans 2 sizes too small and a spiked arm band, and a redhead debutante type.
The neighbor farmers, Rhea Perlman and Randy Quaid gone Hee-Haw, are sick of the kids always sneaking onto their property to screw.
10 minutes in and it's a fucking aces cast.
Annoying fatso Joey gets on the thugs nerves one too many times and we have a showdown that ends with what has to be the film makers way of apologizing for the Shelley character. And it's awesome.
The first part of the movie revolves around establishing that a new round of killings are going on. Characters appear only to serve the purpose of being slasher fodder. But here's the thing. Even if they're only on screen for a few moments, they have depth and a reason to exist on screen. Either for tits, to laugh with, or to laugh at as is the case with two greasers straight out of 1955.
Some cues and hints are given to make you wonder if these killings aren't being done by a character we already know, and not Jason. Tommy meanwhile keeps having visions of Jason, but he's always had those. A real nice job is done of walking the line between what you see and what you can believe.
The kids who like to fuck, run off to do what else? Fuck. And fuck they do. A nice sequence that features a pair of sweet natural titties and a couple of inspired kills. This movie is 10 tons of fun shoved into a 5 pound bag. It's spilling over with charm.
The female assistant to the nuthouse takes Dudley into town to see his brother, who goes by the name Demon. Tommy tags along.
'Town' is apparently a trailer park. OH MY GOD. Demon is a fuckin geri curled extra out of the Beat It video. Awesome. He lives in a van with his girlfriend Anita, looking like a backup singer for Brenda Russell. These characters are all off the charts.
Because of Tommys mental state, it's not wise to fuck with him. One of his housemates learned this earlier and while Tommy waits for Dudley and the assistant, he's confronted by hillbilly Randy Quaid. His buttons pushed too far, Tommy goes all kung fu, turning into a mix of The Incredible Hulk and Jackie Chan. When he's snapped out of his violent trance he screams and runs off into the woods.
Words cannot express happy how much makes movie me this.
Demon does a 'feets don't fail me now' sprint to the outhouse when the enchiladas kick in. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
Some more spirited kills ensue as I'm reminded why I hated outhouses as a kid, besides the open shit hole piled up feet deep.
Back at the house, Matt, the guy who runs the place, has gone looking for the missing lovers. The stutterer is horny and needs to get laid but the debutante just laughs at him in a moment of awesomeness. Redhead goes to bed and we're treated to an extended sequence of her parading around topless in her pretty little panties. Punk chick is doing some variation of the robot to some variation of....music? I cannot describe.
There's an extended chase, that while not awesome from a tension level, does include more tripping than a Fish concert and more falling down than a Michael Douglas film marathon. We finally see the mask during this chase, although who it is wearing it is still anyone's guess at this point. Jasons selling of being hit by a front end loader is magnificent. THIS MOVIE IS SO MUCH FUCKING FUN.
The end gets a little more serious as we're provided with a pretty standard chase and then a reveal and a twist.
The final scene in the film raises a ton of interesting questions about what we've just seen. Exactly how many people were out there killing people and were any of them actually Jason?
The film has a surprising number of layers too it. It's a psychological thriller playing off the past movies with both Tommy and Jason as players and it adds another possible player to the mix right under our noses. But while all that simmers, it gives us countless swank kills, a ton of fun characters and just enough titty.
I sort of get the feeling that the makers knew part three was a major letdown and went out of their way to get it right this time. While part four was serious and awesome, this one embraced the cheese let us have fun with it. Every character is given depth on some level, even if their only purpose is to be killed, and it is fucking enjoyable as all get out.
Almost two movies in one, Part five of the series is another home run. It's hard to compare it to two and four because of the comedic element but what it wants to do, it does with gusto.
Every bit as good as the best the series has offered, but in a different way. Put on some popcorn and watch some fuckers get messed up. You'll have a blast with this Friday.
The place is run by the guy who I swear initiated the sexy gang rape of Jodie Foster in The Accused. He has a female assistant who's fairly fetching.
Tommy is clearly disturbed, but then who wouldn't be? He is brought out of his shell a little bit by, wait for it, DUDLEY!! Fuck yeah. Dudleys grandpa is wise old negro cook. The other residents of the nuthouse are a semi retarded fat dude who's always walking with candy bars in every pocket, eating and haphazardly letting shit drip all down his chin. Maybe he's Shelleys younger brother. A punk rock chick with streaks of coal in her hair, a stutterer, the cool couple, a thug with jeans 2 sizes too small and a spiked arm band, and a redhead debutante type.
The neighbor farmers, Rhea Perlman and Randy Quaid gone Hee-Haw, are sick of the kids always sneaking onto their property to screw.
10 minutes in and it's a fucking aces cast.
Annoying fatso Joey gets on the thugs nerves one too many times and we have a showdown that ends with what has to be the film makers way of apologizing for the Shelley character. And it's awesome.
The first part of the movie revolves around establishing that a new round of killings are going on. Characters appear only to serve the purpose of being slasher fodder. But here's the thing. Even if they're only on screen for a few moments, they have depth and a reason to exist on screen. Either for tits, to laugh with, or to laugh at as is the case with two greasers straight out of 1955.
Some cues and hints are given to make you wonder if these killings aren't being done by a character we already know, and not Jason. Tommy meanwhile keeps having visions of Jason, but he's always had those. A real nice job is done of walking the line between what you see and what you can believe.
The kids who like to fuck, run off to do what else? Fuck. And fuck they do. A nice sequence that features a pair of sweet natural titties and a couple of inspired kills. This movie is 10 tons of fun shoved into a 5 pound bag. It's spilling over with charm.
The female assistant to the nuthouse takes Dudley into town to see his brother, who goes by the name Demon. Tommy tags along.
'Town' is apparently a trailer park. OH MY GOD. Demon is a fuckin geri curled extra out of the Beat It video. Awesome. He lives in a van with his girlfriend Anita, looking like a backup singer for Brenda Russell. These characters are all off the charts.
Because of Tommys mental state, it's not wise to fuck with him. One of his housemates learned this earlier and while Tommy waits for Dudley and the assistant, he's confronted by hillbilly Randy Quaid. His buttons pushed too far, Tommy goes all kung fu, turning into a mix of The Incredible Hulk and Jackie Chan. When he's snapped out of his violent trance he screams and runs off into the woods.
Words cannot express happy how much makes movie me this.
Demon does a 'feets don't fail me now' sprint to the outhouse when the enchiladas kick in. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
Some more spirited kills ensue as I'm reminded why I hated outhouses as a kid, besides the open shit hole piled up feet deep.
Back at the house, Matt, the guy who runs the place, has gone looking for the missing lovers. The stutterer is horny and needs to get laid but the debutante just laughs at him in a moment of awesomeness. Redhead goes to bed and we're treated to an extended sequence of her parading around topless in her pretty little panties. Punk chick is doing some variation of the robot to some variation of....music? I cannot describe.
There's an extended chase, that while not awesome from a tension level, does include more tripping than a Fish concert and more falling down than a Michael Douglas film marathon. We finally see the mask during this chase, although who it is wearing it is still anyone's guess at this point. Jasons selling of being hit by a front end loader is magnificent. THIS MOVIE IS SO MUCH FUCKING FUN.
The end gets a little more serious as we're provided with a pretty standard chase and then a reveal and a twist.
The final scene in the film raises a ton of interesting questions about what we've just seen. Exactly how many people were out there killing people and were any of them actually Jason?
The film has a surprising number of layers too it. It's a psychological thriller playing off the past movies with both Tommy and Jason as players and it adds another possible player to the mix right under our noses. But while all that simmers, it gives us countless swank kills, a ton of fun characters and just enough titty.
I sort of get the feeling that the makers knew part three was a major letdown and went out of their way to get it right this time. While part four was serious and awesome, this one embraced the cheese let us have fun with it. Every character is given depth on some level, even if their only purpose is to be killed, and it is fucking enjoyable as all get out.
Almost two movies in one, Part five of the series is another home run. It's hard to compare it to two and four because of the comedic element but what it wants to do, it does with gusto.
Every bit as good as the best the series has offered, but in a different way. Put on some popcorn and watch some fuckers get messed up. You'll have a blast with this Friday.
2010 Horror Fest: Friday The 13th Part 4: 79 Out Of 100 Stars
Yes, yes, yes!! Quite possibly the standard by which all modern day slasher movies should be judged against.
A much deeper script, a group of solid actors including more than a few 'name' ones, a fucking gaggle of hotties who aren't afraid to put their tits and asses on display, a fully realized Jason and a slew of kills that knock it out of the park.
The film starts off with a recap of the legend of Jason, using clips from the previous movies. It's thorough and concise. The opening credits have an updated graphic but the music is back to the haunting stuff the first two utilized so well.
We pick up the on the night part 3 left off. The cops and ME's are collecting bodies from the scene, including Jasons. Once he's delivered to the morgue we see what Jason has become. He's now more than human, clearly. Right off the bat the comedy and general tone of the film are such an improvement over the previous one. It's all working. The goofy ME, the nurse he wants to bang, the fate that will befall them both, it all just works so well. The kills also raise the bar as Jason delivers some brute force fuckups.
The main plot centers around a large cast. 6 Teenage friends have rented the cabin right next door to a mom, her hot daughter and her young son, played by Corey Feldman in an awesome job. Amongst the friends is angst ridden Crispin Glover who's afraid his girlfriend dumped him because he's a dead fuck.
The teenagers, not long after arriving, bump into 2 gorgeous twin sisters who immediately join them for a skinny dip. Boobs and butts on display and they are all so lovely. Another thing the movie nails is that all the chicks are so angelic looking. These are the kind of girls you wanna take home to mom, fuck their brains out, and watch get killed.
Meanwhile, the brother and sister, Tommy and Trish, meet up with a backpacker named Paul who says he's out here hunting bear but we know full well what he's doing. This is a character who could of very easily come off as cheesy but the guy playing him look like a legit bad ass, like he could of headlined an ABC cop show in the mid 80's.
It's also established very early on that Tommy is a smart and creative kid. He makes his own horror masks, gets high scores on video games and can fix a broken down car. It's these nice little character establishers that help the film build.
Once it's clear that the Crystal Lake killers body is missing from the morgue, along with the nurse and ME, it's time to sit back and enjoy the action.
As I said earlier, this one really raised the bar on the kills. They are forceful, good looking, and nasty as all fuck. A chick gets speared through a boat. This is after we watch her climb into it naked, legs all akimbo, ass and snatch out there for all the world to see. It's a great scene. We get a chubby hippie hitchhiker chick get slashed while eating a banana, a hand through a face, a spear to the nuts and up through the guts, and lots of bitches being thrown out of windows. Fuck, even a poor doggy goes through a window. This new and improved Jason don't fuck around.
Once things kick into high gear it's a constant barrage of fucking and killing. A girl loses her cherry and then loses her life. That's the way it goes. Their isn't much suspense in the killing of the teenagers but they're just there to be fodder for gore and kills which i can't stress enough how good they are.
The final 20 minutes are a strong call back to part 2, the sister, brother, and hunter Paul have figured out that this killer is on the loose and try their best to survive. In an awesome scene, Paul doesn't fare too well as he meets up with Jason in the basement and proclaims "OH GOD HE'S KILLING ME, HE'S KILLING ME!!!" It comes off as funny but not goofy, something a lesser actor may not have been able to convey.
Going through Pauls scrapbook filled with clippings from newspapers about Jason, Tommy sees an old artist rendition of what Jason looked like. Tommy goes to work shaving his head and making himself look as much like a young Jason as he can, just like Ginny did in part 2.
When Tommy has Jason sufficiently befuddled he delivers one of the sweetest kills in movie history. A knife to the face which once delivered, causes Jason to fall face first on the ground, driving the knife up through his skull as his whole head and face contort and ooze and it is fucking magnificent. Tommy and his sister are relieved, but upon seeing Jasons hand flinch he goes ape shit as any smart dude would and just starts fuckin hacking and slashing at the body.
At the hospital, Trish is worried about her brothers outburst but the doctor tells her it was a perfectly normal reaction. In the final scene the two hug, and a last shot of Tommys eyes bugged out closes out a magnificent cinematic experience.
This one was billed as The Final Chapter and most people at the time assumed it was indeed the final chapter. There was a lot of talk about the idea that Jason was dead and Tommy would go psycho and continue the series in some way. But amongst my friends and I, it was a given that Jason was dead.
The series would obviously continue, but if they had decided to end it here it would have been so fitting. Everything works. The atmosphere is back, the tension in the scenes where it's needed is awesome. The kills are first rate, the chicks are gorgeous and naked, and the story is strong and played well.
That makes 3 out of 4 really strong efforts for the series. Take out the gimmicky 3rd installment and you would of had an awesome trilogy.
Quite possibly the greatest slasher movie ever.
A much deeper script, a group of solid actors including more than a few 'name' ones, a fucking gaggle of hotties who aren't afraid to put their tits and asses on display, a fully realized Jason and a slew of kills that knock it out of the park.
The film starts off with a recap of the legend of Jason, using clips from the previous movies. It's thorough and concise. The opening credits have an updated graphic but the music is back to the haunting stuff the first two utilized so well.
We pick up the on the night part 3 left off. The cops and ME's are collecting bodies from the scene, including Jasons. Once he's delivered to the morgue we see what Jason has become. He's now more than human, clearly. Right off the bat the comedy and general tone of the film are such an improvement over the previous one. It's all working. The goofy ME, the nurse he wants to bang, the fate that will befall them both, it all just works so well. The kills also raise the bar as Jason delivers some brute force fuckups.
The main plot centers around a large cast. 6 Teenage friends have rented the cabin right next door to a mom, her hot daughter and her young son, played by Corey Feldman in an awesome job. Amongst the friends is angst ridden Crispin Glover who's afraid his girlfriend dumped him because he's a dead fuck.
The teenagers, not long after arriving, bump into 2 gorgeous twin sisters who immediately join them for a skinny dip. Boobs and butts on display and they are all so lovely. Another thing the movie nails is that all the chicks are so angelic looking. These are the kind of girls you wanna take home to mom, fuck their brains out, and watch get killed.
Meanwhile, the brother and sister, Tommy and Trish, meet up with a backpacker named Paul who says he's out here hunting bear but we know full well what he's doing. This is a character who could of very easily come off as cheesy but the guy playing him look like a legit bad ass, like he could of headlined an ABC cop show in the mid 80's.
It's also established very early on that Tommy is a smart and creative kid. He makes his own horror masks, gets high scores on video games and can fix a broken down car. It's these nice little character establishers that help the film build.
Once it's clear that the Crystal Lake killers body is missing from the morgue, along with the nurse and ME, it's time to sit back and enjoy the action.
As I said earlier, this one really raised the bar on the kills. They are forceful, good looking, and nasty as all fuck. A chick gets speared through a boat. This is after we watch her climb into it naked, legs all akimbo, ass and snatch out there for all the world to see. It's a great scene. We get a chubby hippie hitchhiker chick get slashed while eating a banana, a hand through a face, a spear to the nuts and up through the guts, and lots of bitches being thrown out of windows. Fuck, even a poor doggy goes through a window. This new and improved Jason don't fuck around.
Once things kick into high gear it's a constant barrage of fucking and killing. A girl loses her cherry and then loses her life. That's the way it goes. Their isn't much suspense in the killing of the teenagers but they're just there to be fodder for gore and kills which i can't stress enough how good they are.
The final 20 minutes are a strong call back to part 2, the sister, brother, and hunter Paul have figured out that this killer is on the loose and try their best to survive. In an awesome scene, Paul doesn't fare too well as he meets up with Jason in the basement and proclaims "OH GOD HE'S KILLING ME, HE'S KILLING ME!!!" It comes off as funny but not goofy, something a lesser actor may not have been able to convey.
Going through Pauls scrapbook filled with clippings from newspapers about Jason, Tommy sees an old artist rendition of what Jason looked like. Tommy goes to work shaving his head and making himself look as much like a young Jason as he can, just like Ginny did in part 2.
When Tommy has Jason sufficiently befuddled he delivers one of the sweetest kills in movie history. A knife to the face which once delivered, causes Jason to fall face first on the ground, driving the knife up through his skull as his whole head and face contort and ooze and it is fucking magnificent. Tommy and his sister are relieved, but upon seeing Jasons hand flinch he goes ape shit as any smart dude would and just starts fuckin hacking and slashing at the body.
At the hospital, Trish is worried about her brothers outburst but the doctor tells her it was a perfectly normal reaction. In the final scene the two hug, and a last shot of Tommys eyes bugged out closes out a magnificent cinematic experience.
This one was billed as The Final Chapter and most people at the time assumed it was indeed the final chapter. There was a lot of talk about the idea that Jason was dead and Tommy would go psycho and continue the series in some way. But amongst my friends and I, it was a given that Jason was dead.
The series would obviously continue, but if they had decided to end it here it would have been so fitting. Everything works. The atmosphere is back, the tension in the scenes where it's needed is awesome. The kills are first rate, the chicks are gorgeous and naked, and the story is strong and played well.
That makes 3 out of 4 really strong efforts for the series. Take out the gimmicky 3rd installment and you would of had an awesome trilogy.
Quite possibly the greatest slasher movie ever.
2010 Horror Fest: Friday The 13th Part 3: 40 Out Of 100 Stars
And then it all went to hell. After two very strong movies, the series would take a massive turn in direction.
Let's see what we got here. 3D fad? Check. Keep in mind this was made in 1982, we're just now getting back into 3D. There are so many moments in the movie laughably out of place because they're only there for 3D. Juggling, yo-yo's, snakes. Cheesy porno esque music? Check. Gone is the understated and eerie tone setting score of the first two and in it's place is something more apropos of some sort of haunted disco.
For whatever reason, the makers decided to move out of the location the first two movies were made in NJ, and instead this movie is shot nowhere near a lake. In fact while the lake is alluded to, it's never shown, and in the end when the lead character is supposed to be in a lake, it looks more like a kids pool filled with mud and water. Just awful.
Part 3 also gives us a pivotal character by the name of Shelley. Shelley is.......fucking retarded. He's a doofus who's written and portrayed as an 8 year old in a mans body. Always pouting, always complaining girls don't like him, always playing practical jokes and then getting yelled at like a little kid, and going into a sulk over it. I fucking hate Shelley. He does bring the iconic hockey mask though, so whatever.
Ok, so the movie starts within a day or two after the previous film. A rather bland, faceless group of kids are going to the farmhouse owned by the lead characters parents. The lead, a girl named Chris, had an awful experience here a few years ago so she's going back with a group of friends for the first time in two years. The chicks are pretty hot but rather bland. The characters all seem to be cherry picked for how they can be used rather than how the organically fit together. Waiting for Chris at the farmhouse is a yuppie ex boyfriend of hers. Also tagging along with the group are a pair of Cheech & Chongs who are TOTALLY out of place.
Shelley and one of the chicks go into town to get some supplies and run into what I can't even fathom. A 3 man biker gang consisting of a black dude, a black chick and a white dude. Multiculturalism never looked more out of place.
So yeah. There's not a whole lot of chasing, it's mostly just kills. Jason is still sort of human but it's clear he's stronger than everyone else, unless he gets hit awkwardly with a club or a tree branch, then he topples like a deck of cards. Don't worry though, he's just resting. Some of the kills are played too cute. A spear gun to the eye and head squeeze that are only there for 3D.
The film ends with a rather clumsy looking and retarded call back to the first two films.
Listen, this is pure camp. There are some legit fright moments that made me jump and maybe in a different atmosphere I'd have enjoyed this more for what it was, but after watching the impressive first two films this just comes across as a rushed, gimmicky jaunt designed for the sole purpose of cashing in. There's also no nudity and limited sexual situations, probably to get the widest audience possible.
Forgive me if I take this Friday off.
Let's see what we got here. 3D fad? Check. Keep in mind this was made in 1982, we're just now getting back into 3D. There are so many moments in the movie laughably out of place because they're only there for 3D. Juggling, yo-yo's, snakes. Cheesy porno esque music? Check. Gone is the understated and eerie tone setting score of the first two and in it's place is something more apropos of some sort of haunted disco.
For whatever reason, the makers decided to move out of the location the first two movies were made in NJ, and instead this movie is shot nowhere near a lake. In fact while the lake is alluded to, it's never shown, and in the end when the lead character is supposed to be in a lake, it looks more like a kids pool filled with mud and water. Just awful.
Part 3 also gives us a pivotal character by the name of Shelley. Shelley is.......fucking retarded. He's a doofus who's written and portrayed as an 8 year old in a mans body. Always pouting, always complaining girls don't like him, always playing practical jokes and then getting yelled at like a little kid, and going into a sulk over it. I fucking hate Shelley. He does bring the iconic hockey mask though, so whatever.
Ok, so the movie starts within a day or two after the previous film. A rather bland, faceless group of kids are going to the farmhouse owned by the lead characters parents. The lead, a girl named Chris, had an awful experience here a few years ago so she's going back with a group of friends for the first time in two years. The chicks are pretty hot but rather bland. The characters all seem to be cherry picked for how they can be used rather than how the organically fit together. Waiting for Chris at the farmhouse is a yuppie ex boyfriend of hers. Also tagging along with the group are a pair of Cheech & Chongs who are TOTALLY out of place.
Shelley and one of the chicks go into town to get some supplies and run into what I can't even fathom. A 3 man biker gang consisting of a black dude, a black chick and a white dude. Multiculturalism never looked more out of place.
So yeah. There's not a whole lot of chasing, it's mostly just kills. Jason is still sort of human but it's clear he's stronger than everyone else, unless he gets hit awkwardly with a club or a tree branch, then he topples like a deck of cards. Don't worry though, he's just resting. Some of the kills are played too cute. A spear gun to the eye and head squeeze that are only there for 3D.
The film ends with a rather clumsy looking and retarded call back to the first two films.
Listen, this is pure camp. There are some legit fright moments that made me jump and maybe in a different atmosphere I'd have enjoyed this more for what it was, but after watching the impressive first two films this just comes across as a rushed, gimmicky jaunt designed for the sole purpose of cashing in. There's also no nudity and limited sexual situations, probably to get the widest audience possible.
Forgive me if I take this Friday off.
2010 Horror Fest: Friday The 13th Part 2: 88 Out Of 100 Stars
Marvelous follow up to the original that does everything the first one did well and improves and expands on it by leaps and bounds.
Let's start with the cast. There isn't a name actor in the bunch but they all serve their roles finely and a few key characters even shine.
Something I guess I knew but never really thought about is the fact that although both movies are set around a camp for kids, neither of the first two films contained children. In the first one the camp is being set up for summer camp but everything goes down before opening day. In this one the camp is being set up as a counselor training center. This entry also is not set at Camp Crystal Lake but at another camp site a wee bit down the lake. That doesn't stop Jason though.
As the film opens we're treated to Alice, the lone survivor from the first film, laying in bed and having flashbacks via dream, bringing us all up to date on how the original concluded. We're then treated to the first appearance of adult Jason, and what an interesting calling card he leaves in the fridge.
So all the teenagers show up for the training course and man are there a couple of fine bitches. Kirsten Bakers ass has to be seen to be believed, especially for 1981. She's got a mid 90's ass a good decade before it became en vogue, and her pert little nipples spice up any scene they're in. Then we got Marta Kober who looks like one of those underage internet models that were all the rage a few years ago. Girl also has some magnificent coconuts.
The great thing about this movie is that for the most part, the cast of kids carry it for a good 50 minutes and it never drags or feels cheesy. They work, they joke around, they chill out, Kirsten Baker goes skinny dipping and gives me a boner. Even without Jason as the centerpiece it's an enjoyable watch. There are a few moments sprinkled in that let us know that shit is gonna get messy, such as when the Sheriff stumbles upon a shed in the woods and poor crazy Ralph, whom I've always suspected might of been Jasons dad, get's offed.
As night falls and half the group go into town to get drunk before the work officially starts in the morning, we're treated to some fine scenes featuring what the film makers really understood about this kind of movie. Sex, titty, flirting, anticipation, all leading up to all hell breaking loose. It's seems like such an easy thing to achieve but in the decades since it very rarely has been done better than it's done here. The early killings aren't particularly gory, but they are inventive. The wheelchair dude getting a hatchet in the head and rolling down the stairs is still aces.
Before I get to the films climactic scenes let me stress that the Jason in this movie is not yet the Jason we'll come to know. It's explained and set up that at this point Jason is still believed (and this plays out over the rest of the movie) that Jason is pretty much just a man child who has grown up in the woods, kept away from society and raised with a vicious hunters mentality. Seeing his mothers head chopped off, it's hypothesized, didn't help his mental well being much either.
So once a mostly unseen Jason is finished with the campers who stayed behind, we're treated to what is still an iconic sequence. Ginny and Paul arrive back at camp and the ensuing chase is just so magnificent. From the moment they step into the cabin and Ginny utters the words "Paul, there's someone else in this room", it's all systems go. Fuck man, that line haunted me as a kid and it haunted me re watching it now. Paul fighting with a hooded Jason (he had yet developed into the "character" we would come to know) and chasing Ginny provide what I think are still some of the best shots, angles and direction in a horror film ever. Ginny hides, and while she can't see Jason, the viewer can. It creates an awesome tension.
As I said, Jason is not yet this superhuman killer and actually sells a nut shot and a chair shot. The sequence where Ginny is hiding under the bed and is scared so bad by the rat that she pees herself, allowing us to see Jasons reaction and know that he knows, is just awesome.
The penultimate scene deep in the woods in Jasons shack/altar where Ginny uses what little knowledge she has of Jason and his mother to trick him is made all the more creepier by the single eye hole in Jasons hood as we see his mind working. The decision to show us Ginny remove the hood from a presumed dead Jason but not allow us to see his face, only the guttural reaction the couple has is pure mastery.
And lastly, after Paul and Ginny think it's all over, and the little dog we thought was dead shows up, queuing the sweet music as a callback to the first film, we get treated to one more fright/shock that concludes the film in almost the exact same way the original did. The sweetest part of the ending this time is that we have no idea what happened between the time Jason came through the window and Ginny is carted off in the ambulance. Where is Paul? What happened in that lost time? Fucking aces man, fucking aces.
What can I say? Knowing that the original was not about Jason it sort of made me a little tepid in enjoying it. And I was worried that this one wouldn't stand up to my memories, but boy oh boy was I wrong. This fucker takes it to a whole nother level. The foundation layed in the original is used to knock it out of the park in this stirring sequel. The only thing lacking, interestingly enough, is the gore. Sure there are slicings and stabbing and blood but it's not like the film lingers on the gore. I would also say that the tension in the first is better overall as all the kills in this one come kind of quick and without anyone really knowing what's about to happen.
Is this the best horror movie of all time? I'm having trouble finding a reason to say no.
Let's start with the cast. There isn't a name actor in the bunch but they all serve their roles finely and a few key characters even shine.
Something I guess I knew but never really thought about is the fact that although both movies are set around a camp for kids, neither of the first two films contained children. In the first one the camp is being set up for summer camp but everything goes down before opening day. In this one the camp is being set up as a counselor training center. This entry also is not set at Camp Crystal Lake but at another camp site a wee bit down the lake. That doesn't stop Jason though.
As the film opens we're treated to Alice, the lone survivor from the first film, laying in bed and having flashbacks via dream, bringing us all up to date on how the original concluded. We're then treated to the first appearance of adult Jason, and what an interesting calling card he leaves in the fridge.
So all the teenagers show up for the training course and man are there a couple of fine bitches. Kirsten Bakers ass has to be seen to be believed, especially for 1981. She's got a mid 90's ass a good decade before it became en vogue, and her pert little nipples spice up any scene they're in. Then we got Marta Kober who looks like one of those underage internet models that were all the rage a few years ago. Girl also has some magnificent coconuts.
The great thing about this movie is that for the most part, the cast of kids carry it for a good 50 minutes and it never drags or feels cheesy. They work, they joke around, they chill out, Kirsten Baker goes skinny dipping and gives me a boner. Even without Jason as the centerpiece it's an enjoyable watch. There are a few moments sprinkled in that let us know that shit is gonna get messy, such as when the Sheriff stumbles upon a shed in the woods and poor crazy Ralph, whom I've always suspected might of been Jasons dad, get's offed.
As night falls and half the group go into town to get drunk before the work officially starts in the morning, we're treated to some fine scenes featuring what the film makers really understood about this kind of movie. Sex, titty, flirting, anticipation, all leading up to all hell breaking loose. It's seems like such an easy thing to achieve but in the decades since it very rarely has been done better than it's done here. The early killings aren't particularly gory, but they are inventive. The wheelchair dude getting a hatchet in the head and rolling down the stairs is still aces.
Before I get to the films climactic scenes let me stress that the Jason in this movie is not yet the Jason we'll come to know. It's explained and set up that at this point Jason is still believed (and this plays out over the rest of the movie) that Jason is pretty much just a man child who has grown up in the woods, kept away from society and raised with a vicious hunters mentality. Seeing his mothers head chopped off, it's hypothesized, didn't help his mental well being much either.
So once a mostly unseen Jason is finished with the campers who stayed behind, we're treated to what is still an iconic sequence. Ginny and Paul arrive back at camp and the ensuing chase is just so magnificent. From the moment they step into the cabin and Ginny utters the words "Paul, there's someone else in this room", it's all systems go. Fuck man, that line haunted me as a kid and it haunted me re watching it now. Paul fighting with a hooded Jason (he had yet developed into the "character" we would come to know) and chasing Ginny provide what I think are still some of the best shots, angles and direction in a horror film ever. Ginny hides, and while she can't see Jason, the viewer can. It creates an awesome tension.
As I said, Jason is not yet this superhuman killer and actually sells a nut shot and a chair shot. The sequence where Ginny is hiding under the bed and is scared so bad by the rat that she pees herself, allowing us to see Jasons reaction and know that he knows, is just awesome.
The penultimate scene deep in the woods in Jasons shack/altar where Ginny uses what little knowledge she has of Jason and his mother to trick him is made all the more creepier by the single eye hole in Jasons hood as we see his mind working. The decision to show us Ginny remove the hood from a presumed dead Jason but not allow us to see his face, only the guttural reaction the couple has is pure mastery.
And lastly, after Paul and Ginny think it's all over, and the little dog we thought was dead shows up, queuing the sweet music as a callback to the first film, we get treated to one more fright/shock that concludes the film in almost the exact same way the original did. The sweetest part of the ending this time is that we have no idea what happened between the time Jason came through the window and Ginny is carted off in the ambulance. Where is Paul? What happened in that lost time? Fucking aces man, fucking aces.
What can I say? Knowing that the original was not about Jason it sort of made me a little tepid in enjoying it. And I was worried that this one wouldn't stand up to my memories, but boy oh boy was I wrong. This fucker takes it to a whole nother level. The foundation layed in the original is used to knock it out of the park in this stirring sequel. The only thing lacking, interestingly enough, is the gore. Sure there are slicings and stabbing and blood but it's not like the film lingers on the gore. I would also say that the tension in the first is better overall as all the kills in this one come kind of quick and without anyone really knowing what's about to happen.
Is this the best horror movie of all time? I'm having trouble finding a reason to say no.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)