Three tales of mental unbalance loosely tied together by Narrator Malcolm McDowell as the head head doctor.
The first one is a completely skippable tale of an artist who makes paper mache doll art. The dolls start talking to him, his advisers may be plotting against him and I didn't give much of a fuck for any of it.
The second story is a little better. This one features Chris Mulkey as a fucked up father that makes his American Beauty character look like a friggin Saint. Lacey Chabert is also in this one as the teacher of Mulkeys son and well, I mean look at her, just look at her. The story itself takes a while to get going and the subject matter is pretty disturbing but it's good.
Story number three stars Lou Diamond Phillips as a Professor who goes mad thinking the world is about to end. Phillips is absolutely fantastic in this, the films longest segment.
Skip the first segment and instead focus on the final two. They all play independently enough of each other that you wont miss anything important.
Thursday, November 6, 2014
2014 Horror Fest: Haunter: 76 Out Of 100 Stars
There are times during Haunter when the movie feels like it's trying to do way too much, but it somehow always manages to work its way of its constant twists and turns and end up in a better place than it seems like it will. Even the final sequence delivers a punch above and beyond where you think it's going. A very satisfying punch.
Abigail Breslin does a wonderful job carrying the film as Lisa, a girl who we quickly realize, realizes that something just isn't right in her house. The opening moments might have you feeling like this is gonna be a bit of a quirky little horror film, but it gets very dark. The tone deftly develops slowly over the course of the film and constantly adds new layers and information. The script is tight, but it definitely walks a tight rope and narrowly manages to avoid getting away from itself multiple times. Still, even in those moments there is excitement in watching it reel itself back in.
A clever mystery wrapped up in a rather horrific ball, helmed expertly by the young Breslin. Haunter is about as pleasurable and satisfying an experience as a film about mass murder can be.
Abigail Breslin does a wonderful job carrying the film as Lisa, a girl who we quickly realize, realizes that something just isn't right in her house. The opening moments might have you feeling like this is gonna be a bit of a quirky little horror film, but it gets very dark. The tone deftly develops slowly over the course of the film and constantly adds new layers and information. The script is tight, but it definitely walks a tight rope and narrowly manages to avoid getting away from itself multiple times. Still, even in those moments there is excitement in watching it reel itself back in.
A clever mystery wrapped up in a rather horrific ball, helmed expertly by the young Breslin. Haunter is about as pleasurable and satisfying an experience as a film about mass murder can be.
2014 Horror Fest: Nymph: 22 Out Of 100 Stars
Good gravy. Nymph starts out pedantic enough, a couple of chicks are meeting up with an old college buddy and his fiance somewhere in the Mediterranean. They hang out, drink, dance, bone, throw up, the usual stuff. Then they head out for a deserted island that houses a deserted prison and run into a mystical fish lady and the salty old sailor she controls with her mind.
Of course it sounds dumb, but the movie is actually very beautiful, and the actors equally so. There's even a stretch where as a standard slash and chase movie it's not all that bad. But then it proceeds to spend the final half hour getting sillier and sillier to the point where you want to put a grappling hook into your head. There are some strange edits as well where it seems that most of the action on land was shot on a cheap ass video camera. It appears as if maybe extra footage was shot to tie the story together, which would make sense considering a good deal of time is spent on an old man explaining things in great detail while some of the stuff brought up earlier in the film gets completely ignored.
Despite a slight glimpse of promise, Nymph falls way, way, way off the cliff, and then gets eaten by a maniacal tuna fish.
Of course it sounds dumb, but the movie is actually very beautiful, and the actors equally so. There's even a stretch where as a standard slash and chase movie it's not all that bad. But then it proceeds to spend the final half hour getting sillier and sillier to the point where you want to put a grappling hook into your head. There are some strange edits as well where it seems that most of the action on land was shot on a cheap ass video camera. It appears as if maybe extra footage was shot to tie the story together, which would make sense considering a good deal of time is spent on an old man explaining things in great detail while some of the stuff brought up earlier in the film gets completely ignored.
Despite a slight glimpse of promise, Nymph falls way, way, way off the cliff, and then gets eaten by a maniacal tuna fish.
2014 Horror Fest: E.T.X.R.: 15 Out Of 100 Stars
So the hook of this movie, what got me to watch it, is that a DJ comes into possession of a telescope, the schematics of which were initially developed by Nikola Tesla. At which point strange things start to happen. Now even though I'd probably be willing to let another man make love to my face before I'd listen to an hour techno music, you namedrop Tesla and I'm willing to give it a chance.
That I was able to sit through the entire 77 minutes of this thing makes me kind of proud. It's like I now know that I can deal with just about anything that comes my way, I'll give it that much credit.
So Bix The Bug is a DJ who wears a giant helmet with antennas on it, and he DJ's and shit. One day an old friend from MIT shows up and informs him that he's built this telescope and he's receiving sound signals that he can't figure out on it. So Bix takes the telescope and starts using it at his shows, all of which last approximately 30 seconds and feature annoying video and audio distortion that make the movie look like you're watching it on a TV from 1983, in a rainstorm, on acid.
There's liberal plot lifting from Back To The Future and 2001, but the movie doesn't feel like anything more than an outline of an idea. Despite being a movie about a Tesla telescope that picks up weird signals from space, the movie is roughly as scientific as my pubes. It never goes into depth about a single plot point, or any of its characters. Every single thing that happens in the movie might as well not happen, because once it's done, everyone just moves on anyway with no repercussion.
About the only thing good I can say about E.T.X.R. is that it looks good when it's trying to look like an actual movie and that the actors have presence. Other than that it's just a big a pile of visual and aural nonsense that thinks it's saying something profound, when it not only doesn't have a thing to say, but doesn't show the slightest bit of acumen in conveying it if it did.
That I was able to sit through the entire 77 minutes of this thing makes me kind of proud. It's like I now know that I can deal with just about anything that comes my way, I'll give it that much credit.
So Bix The Bug is a DJ who wears a giant helmet with antennas on it, and he DJ's and shit. One day an old friend from MIT shows up and informs him that he's built this telescope and he's receiving sound signals that he can't figure out on it. So Bix takes the telescope and starts using it at his shows, all of which last approximately 30 seconds and feature annoying video and audio distortion that make the movie look like you're watching it on a TV from 1983, in a rainstorm, on acid.
There's liberal plot lifting from Back To The Future and 2001, but the movie doesn't feel like anything more than an outline of an idea. Despite being a movie about a Tesla telescope that picks up weird signals from space, the movie is roughly as scientific as my pubes. It never goes into depth about a single plot point, or any of its characters. Every single thing that happens in the movie might as well not happen, because once it's done, everyone just moves on anyway with no repercussion.
About the only thing good I can say about E.T.X.R. is that it looks good when it's trying to look like an actual movie and that the actors have presence. Other than that it's just a big a pile of visual and aural nonsense that thinks it's saying something profound, when it not only doesn't have a thing to say, but doesn't show the slightest bit of acumen in conveying it if it did.
Wednesday, November 5, 2014
2014 Horror Fest: Humongous: 36 Out Of 100 Stars
Astoundingly derivative and completely lacking in both production quality and acting ability, the only good thing about 1982's Humongous are that its climactic scenes are filled with spooky atmosphere, which can probably be chalked up to luck more than anything else.
We open sometime in the late 1940's where a rich family who lives on a small island is having a party of some sort. The daughter is being pretty well molested by a drunken suitor, and instead of just turning around and saying "hey, could someone get this drunkard off of me", to any one of the dozens of party goers, she instead runs helplessly into the woods where he proceeds to have his way with her. Now of course rape is never funny, but this scene is the first heads up that the quality of this movie might not be quite up to par. The audio is clearly post production, and to say that it is laughable would be a mild understatement. Imagine being in one room, while in the room to your left a man is struggling to lift very heavy boxes, and in the room to your right a woman is standing on a chair screeching at a mouse on the floor. That's an kind of what this scene sounds like.
Fast forward to today when the cast of Scooby Doo, siblings Eric (Fred), Nick (Shaggy), and Carla (Velma), along with 2 female friends (Daphne & I dunno, they just needed another pair of boobs I guess), are about to engage on a boating trip to somewhere. The acting is so bad that a lot of the dialog has to be dubbed over in post production.
The script gives the characters about as much depth as most porno movies give their characters. After dropping anchor and deciding to wait till morning to navigate the lakes channels, Nick decides that he doesn't want to wait till morning, or he wants to drive a boat, or something stupid. He and his brother Eric fight at the boats helm while Nick proclaims "I got as much right as you" and "you're not the only one who can do things", all of this is interspersed with thrilling shots of a boat wheel turning. So of course Nick crashes the boat, which causes it to explode. The stunt budget for this explosion had to have been in the tens of dollars.
Once on the island, the group is obviously picked off in usual horror movie fashion, only we really don't to see any of the kills. That boat blowing up must have really wiped out their budget. The action doesn't even try to be good. Poor Nick forgoes the usual trope of falling while running and instead ops for the less exhaustive falling while standing perfectly still.
The characters that don't die find an abandoned house, and some clues, which they use to explain the plot in meticulous detail, in case this rivetingly intricate mystery went over the viewers head.
The ending sequence is not bad, but that's mainly due to its liberal borrowing from the main plot point of Friday The 13th Part 2, and the fact that a lot of it is very darkly shot. Still, the psychopath at times sounds more like a fat man being denied pork chops than a maniacal killer, but what can ya do.
Worth a watch for comedic purposes and the somewhat intriguing final act, but that's about it. The only thing Humongous about this movie is its incompetence.
We open sometime in the late 1940's where a rich family who lives on a small island is having a party of some sort. The daughter is being pretty well molested by a drunken suitor, and instead of just turning around and saying "hey, could someone get this drunkard off of me", to any one of the dozens of party goers, she instead runs helplessly into the woods where he proceeds to have his way with her. Now of course rape is never funny, but this scene is the first heads up that the quality of this movie might not be quite up to par. The audio is clearly post production, and to say that it is laughable would be a mild understatement. Imagine being in one room, while in the room to your left a man is struggling to lift very heavy boxes, and in the room to your right a woman is standing on a chair screeching at a mouse on the floor. That's an kind of what this scene sounds like.
Fast forward to today when the cast of Scooby Doo, siblings Eric (Fred), Nick (Shaggy), and Carla (Velma), along with 2 female friends (Daphne & I dunno, they just needed another pair of boobs I guess), are about to engage on a boating trip to somewhere. The acting is so bad that a lot of the dialog has to be dubbed over in post production.
The script gives the characters about as much depth as most porno movies give their characters. After dropping anchor and deciding to wait till morning to navigate the lakes channels, Nick decides that he doesn't want to wait till morning, or he wants to drive a boat, or something stupid. He and his brother Eric fight at the boats helm while Nick proclaims "I got as much right as you" and "you're not the only one who can do things", all of this is interspersed with thrilling shots of a boat wheel turning. So of course Nick crashes the boat, which causes it to explode. The stunt budget for this explosion had to have been in the tens of dollars.
Once on the island, the group is obviously picked off in usual horror movie fashion, only we really don't to see any of the kills. That boat blowing up must have really wiped out their budget. The action doesn't even try to be good. Poor Nick forgoes the usual trope of falling while running and instead ops for the less exhaustive falling while standing perfectly still.
The characters that don't die find an abandoned house, and some clues, which they use to explain the plot in meticulous detail, in case this rivetingly intricate mystery went over the viewers head.
The ending sequence is not bad, but that's mainly due to its liberal borrowing from the main plot point of Friday The 13th Part 2, and the fact that a lot of it is very darkly shot. Still, the psychopath at times sounds more like a fat man being denied pork chops than a maniacal killer, but what can ya do.
Worth a watch for comedic purposes and the somewhat intriguing final act, but that's about it. The only thing Humongous about this movie is its incompetence.
2014 Horror Fest: Wetlands: 32 Out Of 100 Stars
Just your run of the mill German film about hemorrhoids, guys jerking off on pizzas, girls trading used tampons and wiping the residue on themselves, anal leakage, having sex with vegetables and making a girls desire for her divorced parents to get back together seem like the most existential thing ever. The only thing missing is farting and puppies. Whoops, I forgot, the farting is in there too.
The story, when we're not focusing on all the poop and pee and blood, is about a young girl and how her parents getting divorced messed her up. Or something like that. I don't honestly know. Her little brother may have been baked in an over or some shit. I think all the gross stuff is supposed to be like, hey, this is real life. But...I already know that. Believe me you, I am no stranger to the curse of the hemorrhoid. I could write a soliloquy on hemorrhoids, but that wouldn't make it art or artistic or really be in any way interesting to much of anyone else.
If you wanna watch a gross chick have mental issues while her asshole leaks, then this is the movie for you.
The story, when we're not focusing on all the poop and pee and blood, is about a young girl and how her parents getting divorced messed her up. Or something like that. I don't honestly know. Her little brother may have been baked in an over or some shit. I think all the gross stuff is supposed to be like, hey, this is real life. But...I already know that. Believe me you, I am no stranger to the curse of the hemorrhoid. I could write a soliloquy on hemorrhoids, but that wouldn't make it art or artistic or really be in any way interesting to much of anyone else.
If you wanna watch a gross chick have mental issues while her asshole leaks, then this is the movie for you.
2014 Horror Fest: The Loved Ones: 70 Out Of 100 Stars
Sort of an Australian Texas Chainsaw Massacre for the teenage crowd, but with a surprising amount of emotional investment.
Not your typical slash fest, The Loved Ones is certainly a bit bat shit crazy, but it does an excellent job at treating the victims as more than fodder. These aren't just characters that can be killed off with no repercussions to the people around them.
The rather innocuous setup occurs when Brent, still trying to cope with his fathers death, turns down Lolas invitation to the school dance. Lola is not at all stable, and it turns out her dad is even less so. From there it could have easily devolved into a more generic gore fest, and while there is a ton of stomach turning gore, the movie isn't content to leave it at that. There is a side story that takes a while to understand the exact point of, but a subtle reveal helps tie it to the overall narrative nicely.
An ambitious film that delivers blood and guts in spades, but succeeds in being about so much more thanks in no small part to the subtly strong performances of the secondary characters.
Not your typical slash fest, The Loved Ones is certainly a bit bat shit crazy, but it does an excellent job at treating the victims as more than fodder. These aren't just characters that can be killed off with no repercussions to the people around them.
The rather innocuous setup occurs when Brent, still trying to cope with his fathers death, turns down Lolas invitation to the school dance. Lola is not at all stable, and it turns out her dad is even less so. From there it could have easily devolved into a more generic gore fest, and while there is a ton of stomach turning gore, the movie isn't content to leave it at that. There is a side story that takes a while to understand the exact point of, but a subtle reveal helps tie it to the overall narrative nicely.
An ambitious film that delivers blood and guts in spades, but succeeds in being about so much more thanks in no small part to the subtly strong performances of the secondary characters.
2014 Horror Fest: Coherence: 72 Out Of 100 Stars
At times wildly intriguing and a true mind fuck, Coherence is the story of a dinner party that takes place during a comets pass by earth. Little by little, strange things start to happen. Eventually the strange things aren't so little anymore, and while the movie tries to take great care to explain everything, it does at times collapse under the weight and gravitas of its premise. I give it credit though, despite a few leaps of logic and some insanely twisty ideas, it's never not interesting.
Initially the characters don't exactly draw you in. The first 20 minutes or so is like being stuck in a room of yuppies and kind of wanting out. But once the story gets going, it's the board more than the pieces that matter. In the end, the film slyly builds the most important characters to it's conclusion without ever losing focus on the group as whole.
Not as quite clever as it tries to be, but very good none the less, Coherence will keep you guessing, and more importantly, wanting to guess, right up to the end.
Initially the characters don't exactly draw you in. The first 20 minutes or so is like being stuck in a room of yuppies and kind of wanting out. But once the story gets going, it's the board more than the pieces that matter. In the end, the film slyly builds the most important characters to it's conclusion without ever losing focus on the group as whole.
Not as quite clever as it tries to be, but very good none the less, Coherence will keep you guessing, and more importantly, wanting to guess, right up to the end.
Monday, November 3, 2014
2014 Horror Fest: Willow Creek: 68 Out Of 100 Stars
OK, here's the thing. I think in order for the final 40 minutes to be effective, you have to watch the first 40 minutes. The problem is that the first 40 minutes will possibly may make you want to gauge your eyes out out of boredom. I fully understand the method of building to the climactic scenes, but it didn't make it any less tedious. All that being said, the last half of Willow Creek is legitimately frightening as hell. No gimmicks, no tricks, just two people alone in the woods with a camera and...something else.
The story is very simple and the whole movie is of the found footage variety. Jim and his girlfriend Kelly are doing a documentary of sorts on the bigfoot legend. Willow Creek is where the famed Patterson footage, that just about everyone has seen, was shot. The entire first half of the movie is them on their way to the famed site, eating lunch at a bigfoot themed roadside joint, staying at the bigfoot themed motel, talking to various people about the bigfoot legend. It goes on and on, and even as someone who loves bigfoot lore, it was more than enough. None of it is overly interesting, and while the characters themselves don't act quite as douchey as most found footage characters do, there was nothing about them that made me care all that much about their journey.
If you can get through all the preliminary shit, and that's a big if, because I nearly turned it off a few times myself. But if you can get through all of it, you will more than be rewarded. Once they arrive at their camping destination, things really take off as far as the tension and fright levels go.
Imagine you meet a girl. You know at some point in the evening you're going to have some of the most enjoyable sex you've ever had. But you also know you're going to have listen to her babble on for quite a while about her sister, her co-workers, what someone wrote on facebook, yadda yadda. This is the cinematic equivalent of that scenario.
The story is very simple and the whole movie is of the found footage variety. Jim and his girlfriend Kelly are doing a documentary of sorts on the bigfoot legend. Willow Creek is where the famed Patterson footage, that just about everyone has seen, was shot. The entire first half of the movie is them on their way to the famed site, eating lunch at a bigfoot themed roadside joint, staying at the bigfoot themed motel, talking to various people about the bigfoot legend. It goes on and on, and even as someone who loves bigfoot lore, it was more than enough. None of it is overly interesting, and while the characters themselves don't act quite as douchey as most found footage characters do, there was nothing about them that made me care all that much about their journey.
If you can get through all the preliminary shit, and that's a big if, because I nearly turned it off a few times myself. But if you can get through all of it, you will more than be rewarded. Once they arrive at their camping destination, things really take off as far as the tension and fright levels go.
Imagine you meet a girl. You know at some point in the evening you're going to have some of the most enjoyable sex you've ever had. But you also know you're going to have listen to her babble on for quite a while about her sister, her co-workers, what someone wrote on facebook, yadda yadda. This is the cinematic equivalent of that scenario.
2014 Horror Fest: Housebound: 90 Out Of 100 Stars
Easily one of the best movies I've ever had the pleasure to watch.
From New Zealand, this deliciously wicked film never takes its foot off the pedal, adding layer upon layer of fun, blood and wit.
Morgana O'Reilly stars as Kylie, a young girl with a major chip on her shoulder and a rap sheet just as big. As if being sentenced to 8 months of house arrest under the supervision of her mother wasn't bad enough, it doesn't take long for Kylie to suspect that there may be other, other worldly reasons to want to get the hell out of dodge.
About the script I'll say no more, to give anything more away would be a disservice to the joy of watching this film develop.
Even at 1:48 the film never drags, in fact it's got so many twists and turns, zigs and zags, just when you think you've got it figured out, they add a new layer of awesome. But it all makes perfect sense in the end. Funny, crude, gross, tense, dramatic, smart, wicked, clever, I love my adjectives yes, but when a film can coherently combine all these elements on top of telling a honed story, it deserves all the love I can give it.
Watch it. WATCH IT!
From New Zealand, this deliciously wicked film never takes its foot off the pedal, adding layer upon layer of fun, blood and wit.
Morgana O'Reilly stars as Kylie, a young girl with a major chip on her shoulder and a rap sheet just as big. As if being sentenced to 8 months of house arrest under the supervision of her mother wasn't bad enough, it doesn't take long for Kylie to suspect that there may be other, other worldly reasons to want to get the hell out of dodge.
About the script I'll say no more, to give anything more away would be a disservice to the joy of watching this film develop.
Even at 1:48 the film never drags, in fact it's got so many twists and turns, zigs and zags, just when you think you've got it figured out, they add a new layer of awesome. But it all makes perfect sense in the end. Funny, crude, gross, tense, dramatic, smart, wicked, clever, I love my adjectives yes, but when a film can coherently combine all these elements on top of telling a honed story, it deserves all the love I can give it.
Watch it. WATCH IT!
2014 Horror Fest: April Fools Day: 75 Out Of 100 Stars
Hold the friggin phone. How had I never heard of this little gem?
From 1986, April Fools Day is the story of a bunch of friends invited to the island estate of their pal Muffy, played brilliantly by Deborah Foreman, who for a short time in the 80's was probably close to A-list. Horror fans might also recognize Amy Steel, who played Ginny in Friday The 13th II. While her acting skills aren't quite as on display here in a secondary role as they were in that film, she certainly shines. Girl looks good.
Filled with humor, but not exactly a comedy, AFD has all the charm of an 80's slasher but is not at all dated. The cast is perfect, the writing superb, and more importantly, the script knows exactly when to transition from fun to frightening. The tension level never gets quite to where it needs to be, but that's OK because the kills, while not gory, are pretty inventive.
A forgotten or underrated gem, April Fools Day is damn fine fun. And that's no joke.
From 1986, April Fools Day is the story of a bunch of friends invited to the island estate of their pal Muffy, played brilliantly by Deborah Foreman, who for a short time in the 80's was probably close to A-list. Horror fans might also recognize Amy Steel, who played Ginny in Friday The 13th II. While her acting skills aren't quite as on display here in a secondary role as they were in that film, she certainly shines. Girl looks good.
Filled with humor, but not exactly a comedy, AFD has all the charm of an 80's slasher but is not at all dated. The cast is perfect, the writing superb, and more importantly, the script knows exactly when to transition from fun to frightening. The tension level never gets quite to where it needs to be, but that's OK because the kills, while not gory, are pretty inventive.
A forgotten or underrated gem, April Fools Day is damn fine fun. And that's no joke.
2014 Horror Fest: Bigfoot Wars: 20 Out Of 100 Stars
I so badly want a good Bigfoot movie, so I'll watch anything Bigfoot related. Unfortunately I still haven't see on that's come close to good.
Bigfoot Wars is a horrendously written, sloppily edited, low budget, rape of the senses about a coven of Sasquatches who are stealing a small towns women in order to impregnate them. Yeah.
Holt Boggs stars as the Sheriff with a dark past. We know he's got a dark past because of flashbacks and the ridiculous voice overs we get the whole movie of him waxing poetic about life, the universe, yadda yadda. Imagine if Toxic Avenger had random audio of someone reading Tolstoy all throughout the movie. Actually that sounds infinitely funnier than this ends up being.
Anyway, the Sheriffs cunt of a daughter gets kidnapped by these redneck yeti in the middle of a drive in, in a scene that is somehow not played for laughs, but rather expects the viewer to take it seriously, and it's time for the Sheriff to get a posse together to go hunt some bigfeets.
This is when C. Thomas Howell shows up, he plays the Don of the redneck mafia. I wish I was making this shit up. Anyway, despite all the trouble he's had with the law over the years, his daughter was also abducted by the Rapesquatches, and he insists on leading the lawmen into the woods to help find the missing girls. But before they get going, actually before, during and after they get going, he goes on long shaman like tangents about nature and philosophy and oh my god my brain is bleeding. His performance is good, but the material is sooooo fucking stupid. Anyway, that's as much of the story as you need to know, except that there's also a news reporter and her camera man out in the woods and the two parties meet up and it's all so horrible. Oh yeah, Judd Nelson plays a doctor in a bunch of scenes that looked like they were filmed in a day or so. I hope like hell the people who made this movie went broke paying him.
The bigfoot costumes are so bad. I mean soooooooooo bad. The effects are awful. Most of the time anything gets clawed or shot or chopped up, the camera cuts away right before impact and then cuts back. The audio is shitty, half the time the bass is so high that it distorts the sound, the other half of the time it just isn't there. Nothing like seeing a bigfoot hand swiping, having the camera cut away, not hearing anything, then cutting back to see someone laying on the ground with a claw mark on their chest. It's just so fucking low rent. Oh, and the Kid Rock knockoff soundtrack is almost as painful to listen to as the movie is to watch.
The most impressive thing about this movie is that it was able to pay its stars. Still, Judd Nelson & C. Thomas Howell should both really be ashamed of themselves.
Bigfoot Wars is a horrendously written, sloppily edited, low budget, rape of the senses about a coven of Sasquatches who are stealing a small towns women in order to impregnate them. Yeah.
Holt Boggs stars as the Sheriff with a dark past. We know he's got a dark past because of flashbacks and the ridiculous voice overs we get the whole movie of him waxing poetic about life, the universe, yadda yadda. Imagine if Toxic Avenger had random audio of someone reading Tolstoy all throughout the movie. Actually that sounds infinitely funnier than this ends up being.
Anyway, the Sheriffs cunt of a daughter gets kidnapped by these redneck yeti in the middle of a drive in, in a scene that is somehow not played for laughs, but rather expects the viewer to take it seriously, and it's time for the Sheriff to get a posse together to go hunt some bigfeets.
This is when C. Thomas Howell shows up, he plays the Don of the redneck mafia. I wish I was making this shit up. Anyway, despite all the trouble he's had with the law over the years, his daughter was also abducted by the Rapesquatches, and he insists on leading the lawmen into the woods to help find the missing girls. But before they get going, actually before, during and after they get going, he goes on long shaman like tangents about nature and philosophy and oh my god my brain is bleeding. His performance is good, but the material is sooooo fucking stupid. Anyway, that's as much of the story as you need to know, except that there's also a news reporter and her camera man out in the woods and the two parties meet up and it's all so horrible. Oh yeah, Judd Nelson plays a doctor in a bunch of scenes that looked like they were filmed in a day or so. I hope like hell the people who made this movie went broke paying him.
The bigfoot costumes are so bad. I mean soooooooooo bad. The effects are awful. Most of the time anything gets clawed or shot or chopped up, the camera cuts away right before impact and then cuts back. The audio is shitty, half the time the bass is so high that it distorts the sound, the other half of the time it just isn't there. Nothing like seeing a bigfoot hand swiping, having the camera cut away, not hearing anything, then cutting back to see someone laying on the ground with a claw mark on their chest. It's just so fucking low rent. Oh, and the Kid Rock knockoff soundtrack is almost as painful to listen to as the movie is to watch.
The most impressive thing about this movie is that it was able to pay its stars. Still, Judd Nelson & C. Thomas Howell should both really be ashamed of themselves.
Friday, October 31, 2014
2014 Horror Fest: The Taking Of Deborah Logan: 42 Out Of 100 Stars
Another shitty found footage movie. The premise of this one is that a film crew from a local college wants to do a documentary on the affects of Alzheimers. There subject is Deborah Logan, a woman in the early stages of the disease. So they set up camp at her house where she lives with her daughter and wouldn't you know it, supernatural shit starts to happen.
My issue with this movie is the same issue I have with most of these types of movies, and that is that the story being told would be served so much better without the stupid fucking gimmick. At a point it gets beyond silly that there are cameras everywhere and the every time something happens they can't help but pick up a camera, no matter how scared or frightened they are. By the time the 10th weird thing happens to Deborah Logan you'd think there would be more important things to do than film her every move. The cameras in the hospital are the ridiculous icing on the retarded cake.
My other issue is that the characters in these movies never act real. They always, this one included, act the furthest thing from real. Lots of hyper screaming and cursing is a script direction, not realism. I fucking hate it with a passion.
Now for the good. Jill Larson is fantastic as the titular character, but then again she's also the only one in the movie unbound by the stupid convention of having to constantly acknowledge the camera. The gore and the creep factor are also really strong.
I really wanted to like this movie, especially the third act. But by the time the final scenes roll around and the only light they have available is the one on the camera, my fists were too clenched to applaud.
All this being said, if the genre doesn't inherently make you want to set your pubes on fire in the hope of sweet release, you'll probably enjoy this movie a lot.
My issue with this movie is the same issue I have with most of these types of movies, and that is that the story being told would be served so much better without the stupid fucking gimmick. At a point it gets beyond silly that there are cameras everywhere and the every time something happens they can't help but pick up a camera, no matter how scared or frightened they are. By the time the 10th weird thing happens to Deborah Logan you'd think there would be more important things to do than film her every move. The cameras in the hospital are the ridiculous icing on the retarded cake.
My other issue is that the characters in these movies never act real. They always, this one included, act the furthest thing from real. Lots of hyper screaming and cursing is a script direction, not realism. I fucking hate it with a passion.
Now for the good. Jill Larson is fantastic as the titular character, but then again she's also the only one in the movie unbound by the stupid convention of having to constantly acknowledge the camera. The gore and the creep factor are also really strong.
I really wanted to like this movie, especially the third act. But by the time the final scenes roll around and the only light they have available is the one on the camera, my fists were too clenched to applaud.
All this being said, if the genre doesn't inherently make you want to set your pubes on fire in the hope of sweet release, you'll probably enjoy this movie a lot.
2014 Horror Fest: The Hearse: 58 Out Of 100 Stars
Atmospheric if a bit lengthy, The Hearse is the story of a woman who inherits the house where her Aunt died some 30 years ago.
Much more of a psychological thriller than a slasher film, it has ambiance coming out the ass. The film is visually very dark, which serves the mood perfectly. Trish Van Devere is fetching as the tormented lead and does a fine job carrying the movie.
If you're looking for a middle of the night spook out, The Hearse will serve you just fine.
Much more of a psychological thriller than a slasher film, it has ambiance coming out the ass. The film is visually very dark, which serves the mood perfectly. Trish Van Devere is fetching as the tormented lead and does a fine job carrying the movie.
If you're looking for a middle of the night spook out, The Hearse will serve you just fine.
2014 Horror Fest: Werewolf Rising: 28 Out Of 100 Stars
A rather horrendous overall film with the following caveat. Of the movies 72 minute run time, only the final 20 minutes are worth watching. But son of a bitch is it realllly worth watching.
The first hour or so of the movie is spent watching Emma come home to her families secluded mountain cabin, watching Emma ride an ATV, watching Emma lounge around, watching Emma flirt with an escaped convict, watching Emma try to fend off advances from her creepy Uncle. There's a lot of Emma watching. Oh yeah, and there's a werewolf lurking about in them there woods. At least it's supposed to be a werewolf, could just be that the local custom shop got burglarized.
Melissa Carnell as Emma is in way over her head here, but the film does her no favors at all. The writing is sub par, the pacing is tedious, the effects leave a great deal to be desired, it's all just really low budget.
All that being said, in the final 20 minutes a guy by the name of Bill Oberst shows up, along with an actual script. Maybe I was just bored out of my mind and waiting for anything to happen, but the twists, turns and general story of the films third act really drew me in.
I can't in good conscience suggest anyone sit through Werewolf Rising, but at least the payoff is worth it.
The first hour or so of the movie is spent watching Emma come home to her families secluded mountain cabin, watching Emma ride an ATV, watching Emma lounge around, watching Emma flirt with an escaped convict, watching Emma try to fend off advances from her creepy Uncle. There's a lot of Emma watching. Oh yeah, and there's a werewolf lurking about in them there woods. At least it's supposed to be a werewolf, could just be that the local custom shop got burglarized.
Melissa Carnell as Emma is in way over her head here, but the film does her no favors at all. The writing is sub par, the pacing is tedious, the effects leave a great deal to be desired, it's all just really low budget.
All that being said, in the final 20 minutes a guy by the name of Bill Oberst shows up, along with an actual script. Maybe I was just bored out of my mind and waiting for anything to happen, but the twists, turns and general story of the films third act really drew me in.
I can't in good conscience suggest anyone sit through Werewolf Rising, but at least the payoff is worth it.
2014 Horror Fest: Spookies: 60 Out Of 100 Stars
From 1986, Spookies is filled with cheesy makeup, horrible puppetry, and stupid characters, but it's so endearingly silly that I couldn't help but enjoy the nonsense.
A group of adults, not even teenagers, but full grown adults, are looking for a place to party. The old abandoned house in the middle of a grave yard looks like as good a place as any. Sure, why not? Bad news for them though, because some old demon or some shit is living here, waiting to collect souls to help him revive his bride. Something like that.
Among the party goers is Duke, an Italian guy who even the producers of Jersey Shore would probably consider too over the top.
Once inside the house, the movie lets loose an abundance of silly creatures on it's unsuspecting guests. An Asian spider lady, flatulent floor monsters, various animatronic goblins, and some elf dude dressed like the MC at Catch A Rising Star.
A monstrously silly camp fest, Creepies reminded me of the kind of movie a 9 year old me would have loved, and as such I enjoyed it immensely, ymmv though.
A group of adults, not even teenagers, but full grown adults, are looking for a place to party. The old abandoned house in the middle of a grave yard looks like as good a place as any. Sure, why not? Bad news for them though, because some old demon or some shit is living here, waiting to collect souls to help him revive his bride. Something like that.
Among the party goers is Duke, an Italian guy who even the producers of Jersey Shore would probably consider too over the top.
Once inside the house, the movie lets loose an abundance of silly creatures on it's unsuspecting guests. An Asian spider lady, flatulent floor monsters, various animatronic goblins, and some elf dude dressed like the MC at Catch A Rising Star.
A monstrously silly camp fest, Creepies reminded me of the kind of movie a 9 year old me would have loved, and as such I enjoyed it immensely, ymmv though.
Thursday, October 30, 2014
2014 Horror Fest: After Midnight: 10 Out Of 100 Stars
Sweet lord! It's hard to make fun of such a retarded movie. I mean that literally. Like, this movie is retarded, and thus I don't want to make fun of it. Going in I thought this was a horror movie. Turns out it's a Skinemax type flick. There is however, a great deal about this film that's horrific.
There obviously exists a world in which movies like this get produced and made, but I really don't want to know anything about that world. It's got to be the saddest place on earth.
Catherine Annette stars as Constance, a television anchor whose stripper sister has just been murdered. She finds out about her sisters murder by reading the news story live on air. The entire news crew consists of her, the guy behind the camera, and a producer. This is supposed to be a major L.A. station by the way. I realize I'm over thinking the shittyness of this, but for Christ sakes man. Constance takes it upon herself to find out what happened by going undercover as a stripper herself. This displeases her producer, the creepy & chubby John. It also displeases her doctor/sponsor/counselor, played by the ghost of Richard Grieco, who has somehow morphed into a more weathered version of Jeff Goldblum.
So Constance starts dancing at the club, which leads to lots of scenes involving the strippers whom I'd be willing to bet are actually more adept at stripping than they are acting. Though to be fair to them, NOBODY in this movie is what I would call competent in the field of acting.
The mystery of who killed Constances sister slowly unfolds in a script that's not even on the level of the worst daytime soap operas. The more and more people get killed, the less and less anyone left alive seems to be bothered by any of it. This includes Tawny Kitaen as the clubs owner, wearing about a pound of makeup for every year since she's been relevant. There's also Constances other sister, who was left brain damaged in some way. It's never really explained, she just sits in a wheel chair in what is supposed to be a hospital room but looks more like the spare bedroom at your Uncles place.
Boobies are all over the place, but just like everything else in the movie they aren't quite the highest caliber of girls. Lots of plastic and a few miles of foundation.
I thought Life Itself was the saddest movie I would watch this year. Turns out I was wrong.
There obviously exists a world in which movies like this get produced and made, but I really don't want to know anything about that world. It's got to be the saddest place on earth.
Catherine Annette stars as Constance, a television anchor whose stripper sister has just been murdered. She finds out about her sisters murder by reading the news story live on air. The entire news crew consists of her, the guy behind the camera, and a producer. This is supposed to be a major L.A. station by the way. I realize I'm over thinking the shittyness of this, but for Christ sakes man. Constance takes it upon herself to find out what happened by going undercover as a stripper herself. This displeases her producer, the creepy & chubby John. It also displeases her doctor/sponsor/counselor, played by the ghost of Richard Grieco, who has somehow morphed into a more weathered version of Jeff Goldblum.
So Constance starts dancing at the club, which leads to lots of scenes involving the strippers whom I'd be willing to bet are actually more adept at stripping than they are acting. Though to be fair to them, NOBODY in this movie is what I would call competent in the field of acting.
The mystery of who killed Constances sister slowly unfolds in a script that's not even on the level of the worst daytime soap operas. The more and more people get killed, the less and less anyone left alive seems to be bothered by any of it. This includes Tawny Kitaen as the clubs owner, wearing about a pound of makeup for every year since she's been relevant. There's also Constances other sister, who was left brain damaged in some way. It's never really explained, she just sits in a wheel chair in what is supposed to be a hospital room but looks more like the spare bedroom at your Uncles place.
Boobies are all over the place, but just like everything else in the movie they aren't quite the highest caliber of girls. Lots of plastic and a few miles of foundation.
I thought Life Itself was the saddest movie I would watch this year. Turns out I was wrong.
2014 Horror Fest: My Bloody Valentine: 44 Out Of 100 Stars
From 1981, the town of Valentine Bluff has a Valentines killer who doesn't want there to be a Valentines Day Dance. If ever a town was in need of re branding, it's this one.
So 20 years ago there was an accident in the mines and 5 miners got trapped. Only Harry Warden survived, and when he was finally rescued he was eating his co-workers. From there he went on a rampage, apparently upset that the town went on with the Valentines day festivities while he was trapped below the earth eating people for dinner.
Since then the town has decided to forgo all Valentines day activities, because despite the fact that he was captured and locked up, Harry promised that if there was ever another Valentines day dance he'd come back and kill everyone.
But you can't stop progress, and gosh darn it the kids want their damn Valentines day dance. Now, when I say kids, I'm talking about a group of twenty somethings who all work in the mines, most of whom are rather strapping. But the film insists on constantly referring to them as kids.
Of course once the dance is announced and the balloons and paper hearts are hung all over town, and I do mean all over town. The set decoration may be a little overdone here. Once that's done, bad things start to happen to the townsfolk, and away we go. The sheriff and the mayor, both of whom look like they've been smoking about 10 years longer than they've been alive, they don't want to scare the town, so they come up with an excuse to cancel the festivities while they try and figure out what's going on. The kids will have none of it however, and they plan their own secret party down at the mines.
As if all of this wasn't enough, we also have a soap opera going on as TJ and Axel, two old friends, are battling for the heart of Sarah. TJ left town sometime back to make it in L.A., what that means I have no idea, but whatever he was trying to do, he failed. When he left he broke Sarahs heart, so she hooked up with Axel. But now TJ is back and he wants his girl. The two men argue over her as if she were couch. Most of her say in the matter is reduced to being manhandled and told how much each guy loves her while she hems and haws and spends most of the damn movie never making a damn decision.
The kills are pretty fun and innovative, I'll give it that much. The setup isn't bad at all either, it's the films rather ponderous third act that really drags it down. A room full of 6'2, 220lb men realize there's a killer on the loose and immediately scatter back into town to get the middle aged, 150lb sheriff. This leaves only TJ and Axel to go down into the mines where some of their friends have decided to go for a little fun. The final chase scene goes on for what feels like forever while trying to build a twist that you see coming from a mile away, even in a dark abandoned mine.
It's not awful, but there are better movies you could choo-choo-choose to be your Valentine.
So 20 years ago there was an accident in the mines and 5 miners got trapped. Only Harry Warden survived, and when he was finally rescued he was eating his co-workers. From there he went on a rampage, apparently upset that the town went on with the Valentines day festivities while he was trapped below the earth eating people for dinner.
Since then the town has decided to forgo all Valentines day activities, because despite the fact that he was captured and locked up, Harry promised that if there was ever another Valentines day dance he'd come back and kill everyone.
But you can't stop progress, and gosh darn it the kids want their damn Valentines day dance. Now, when I say kids, I'm talking about a group of twenty somethings who all work in the mines, most of whom are rather strapping. But the film insists on constantly referring to them as kids.
Of course once the dance is announced and the balloons and paper hearts are hung all over town, and I do mean all over town. The set decoration may be a little overdone here. Once that's done, bad things start to happen to the townsfolk, and away we go. The sheriff and the mayor, both of whom look like they've been smoking about 10 years longer than they've been alive, they don't want to scare the town, so they come up with an excuse to cancel the festivities while they try and figure out what's going on. The kids will have none of it however, and they plan their own secret party down at the mines.
As if all of this wasn't enough, we also have a soap opera going on as TJ and Axel, two old friends, are battling for the heart of Sarah. TJ left town sometime back to make it in L.A., what that means I have no idea, but whatever he was trying to do, he failed. When he left he broke Sarahs heart, so she hooked up with Axel. But now TJ is back and he wants his girl. The two men argue over her as if she were couch. Most of her say in the matter is reduced to being manhandled and told how much each guy loves her while she hems and haws and spends most of the damn movie never making a damn decision.
The kills are pretty fun and innovative, I'll give it that much. The setup isn't bad at all either, it's the films rather ponderous third act that really drags it down. A room full of 6'2, 220lb men realize there's a killer on the loose and immediately scatter back into town to get the middle aged, 150lb sheriff. This leaves only TJ and Axel to go down into the mines where some of their friends have decided to go for a little fun. The final chase scene goes on for what feels like forever while trying to build a twist that you see coming from a mile away, even in a dark abandoned mine.
It's not awful, but there are better movies you could choo-choo-choose to be your Valentine.
2014 Horror Fest: Fields Of The Dead: 36 Out Of 100 Stars
I'll be honest, seeing an opening credit sequence that lists A Film By Daniel Iske, Director Of Photography Daniel Iske, Music By James Iske, Produced By Wendy Iske, gives me pause. It makes me think that Mr. Iske wanted to make a movie, so he got his brother to do the sound and his mom to pay for it. It doesn't exactly give me high hopes for the quality of what I'm about to see. Thankfully it's written by someone not named Iske.
As I anticipated, the budget is low and the acting is...well it's as good as it needs to be. The problem with the whole thing is that every aspect of the movie is only nearly competent. The story is not that engaging, and the majority of the cast is adequate. Thankfully, Melanie Gillis as Cheryl, who has to carry most of the dramatic moments, is good enough to do so. On the other end, Sarah Wald as Ashley, well let's just say she's very pretty. Most attempts at emotion seem to be a major task for this poor girl. Luckily, she's so bad that her performance turns into a bright spot and gives the film a level of unintended humor.
The story is sort of straight forward. Trent is doing his thesis on soil or some shit, and he and a bunch of friends are spending the week on an old farm in the middle of nowhere doing research and collecting soil samples or something. The bad news is that the land was home to an Indian, I mean Native American, slaughter some centuries ago. There's also something about a mother and a son and the son is illegitimate or something, I dunno. The mystery and the back story was a bit verbose and I honestly didn't give nearly as big a shit about it as the writer did.
The look is decent but it's clearly fairly amateurish. There are a few technical mishaps that should never happen, such as when a diary is discovered and some shots show it as handwritten, but then others show that it's clearly typed. This happens more than once.
The action and gore is decent and as good as it needs to be. I'm sensing a theme here. The girls are all attractive and scantily clad but there's no real nudity.
Not engaging enough of a story to overcome it's deficiencies, Fields Of The Dead isn't a horrible movie, but there's no reason to go out of your way to see it. Maybe replant and see if next years crop is any better.
As I anticipated, the budget is low and the acting is...well it's as good as it needs to be. The problem with the whole thing is that every aspect of the movie is only nearly competent. The story is not that engaging, and the majority of the cast is adequate. Thankfully, Melanie Gillis as Cheryl, who has to carry most of the dramatic moments, is good enough to do so. On the other end, Sarah Wald as Ashley, well let's just say she's very pretty. Most attempts at emotion seem to be a major task for this poor girl. Luckily, she's so bad that her performance turns into a bright spot and gives the film a level of unintended humor.
The story is sort of straight forward. Trent is doing his thesis on soil or some shit, and he and a bunch of friends are spending the week on an old farm in the middle of nowhere doing research and collecting soil samples or something. The bad news is that the land was home to an Indian, I mean Native American, slaughter some centuries ago. There's also something about a mother and a son and the son is illegitimate or something, I dunno. The mystery and the back story was a bit verbose and I honestly didn't give nearly as big a shit about it as the writer did.
The look is decent but it's clearly fairly amateurish. There are a few technical mishaps that should never happen, such as when a diary is discovered and some shots show it as handwritten, but then others show that it's clearly typed. This happens more than once.
The action and gore is decent and as good as it needs to be. I'm sensing a theme here. The girls are all attractive and scantily clad but there's no real nudity.
Not engaging enough of a story to overcome it's deficiencies, Fields Of The Dead isn't a horrible movie, but there's no reason to go out of your way to see it. Maybe replant and see if next years crop is any better.
Wednesday, October 29, 2014
2014 Horror Fest: Zombeavers: 80 Out Of 100 Stars
Well I'll be dammed! A mishap involving some toxic waste has some rather interesting results on the local wildlife population in this superbly written and acted sex comedy.
Jenns boyfriend has cheated on her, so her besties Zoe & Mary take her on a girls weekend away to a secluded lakeside cabin. They aren't there long before their boyfriends, and other predators, show up and start causing havoc.
30 seconds in you know you're in for a good time. The writing is crisp and funny and all the performances are top notch. Of course, being a film about zombie beavers, you know there's going to be gads of silliness, but the film takes itself just seriously enough for the chases and kills to be equally as engaging as the boobs and the sex.
While obviously a little more on the insane side, Zombeavers reminded a lot stylistically of the original Lake Placid. It's very well shot, looks good, and never feels at all claustrophobic, even though much of the action takes place in a small area. The effects, while obviously cheesy, work in that they fit the exact tone of the rest of the film
Surprisingly smart and wickedly clever, Zombeavers takes what could have easily been a one note joke and churns out an engaging and humorous romp about love, friendship, and the buck toothed undead.
Jenns boyfriend has cheated on her, so her besties Zoe & Mary take her on a girls weekend away to a secluded lakeside cabin. They aren't there long before their boyfriends, and other predators, show up and start causing havoc.
30 seconds in you know you're in for a good time. The writing is crisp and funny and all the performances are top notch. Of course, being a film about zombie beavers, you know there's going to be gads of silliness, but the film takes itself just seriously enough for the chases and kills to be equally as engaging as the boobs and the sex.
While obviously a little more on the insane side, Zombeavers reminded a lot stylistically of the original Lake Placid. It's very well shot, looks good, and never feels at all claustrophobic, even though much of the action takes place in a small area. The effects, while obviously cheesy, work in that they fit the exact tone of the rest of the film
Surprisingly smart and wickedly clever, Zombeavers takes what could have easily been a one note joke and churns out an engaging and humorous romp about love, friendship, and the buck toothed undead.
2014 Horror Fest: TerrorVision: 30 Out Of 100 Stars
Holy tomatoes! Goofier than the short bus, this fare from 1987 is about as camp as it gets. Playing every 80's stereotype to full hilt, TerrorVision is the story of monsters from an alien world somehow transmitted through space and into the Puttermans living room via their new satellite dish. Imagine a Sid & Marty Croft horror movie, and this is pretty much what you get.
A creature looking like a melted Jabba The Hut, mom and dad trying to have an orgy with a couple they just met. Big sister has more colors in her hair than a pack of crayons, her boyfriend dresses like RATT is too sophisticated for him. Grandpa has a bunker full of weapons and little Sherman can't convince anyone that a monster is eating everyone. Throw in a big boobed TV hostess for good measure.
Is it any good? I don't think so, but it's all so gosh darn silly that it's honestly hard to tell. It's not very scary, and the monsters are goofily bad, but the camp level is so high that it might be fun on that level. Didn't do much for me though.
A creature looking like a melted Jabba The Hut, mom and dad trying to have an orgy with a couple they just met. Big sister has more colors in her hair than a pack of crayons, her boyfriend dresses like RATT is too sophisticated for him. Grandpa has a bunker full of weapons and little Sherman can't convince anyone that a monster is eating everyone. Throw in a big boobed TV hostess for good measure.
Is it any good? I don't think so, but it's all so gosh darn silly that it's honestly hard to tell. It's not very scary, and the monsters are goofily bad, but the camp level is so high that it might be fun on that level. Didn't do much for me though.
2014 Horror Fest: Evil Feed: 72 Out Of 100 Stars
Based on a story by Ryan Nicholson, which I thankfully didn't see until the credits rolled, otherwise I may have just trashed this fucker, Evil Feed is best described as Kill Bill merged with Bloodsport, turned into a slapstick comedy about eating people.
Terry Chen is fantastic as Steven, A demented restauranteur who specializes in human cuisine. Without him the movie would still have it's moments, but he's the glue that holds this ambitious foray into blood, guts, titties and dick eating all together.
Besides it's menu, The Long Pig has other offerings, such as cage fights where you do not want to be the loser, live sex shows where you do not want to be the loser, and medical procedures where you do not want to be the loser. All of these are available to watch via closed circuit TV while you enjoy your meal.
The story begins when a local martial arts instructor is added to the menu. His students, including his daughter, find their way to the underground eatery and attempt to save their sensei.
Short on making any kind of sense, but filled with fighting, one liners, disembowelment, naked women, one liners, skinning alive, and one liners, Evil Feed is not afraid to throw everything at the wall. While it doesn't always hit it's mark, more than enough of it does to make it worth watching. How can you hate on a movie where sex is used as a way marinate the house special?
Outrageously ambitious, Evil Feed manages to serve up just as many laughs as it does body parts.
Terry Chen is fantastic as Steven, A demented restauranteur who specializes in human cuisine. Without him the movie would still have it's moments, but he's the glue that holds this ambitious foray into blood, guts, titties and dick eating all together.
Besides it's menu, The Long Pig has other offerings, such as cage fights where you do not want to be the loser, live sex shows where you do not want to be the loser, and medical procedures where you do not want to be the loser. All of these are available to watch via closed circuit TV while you enjoy your meal.
The story begins when a local martial arts instructor is added to the menu. His students, including his daughter, find their way to the underground eatery and attempt to save their sensei.
Short on making any kind of sense, but filled with fighting, one liners, disembowelment, naked women, one liners, skinning alive, and one liners, Evil Feed is not afraid to throw everything at the wall. While it doesn't always hit it's mark, more than enough of it does to make it worth watching. How can you hate on a movie where sex is used as a way marinate the house special?
Outrageously ambitious, Evil Feed manages to serve up just as many laughs as it does body parts.
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
2014 Horror Fest: Summer Of Blood: 76 Out Of 100 Stars
An invigorating and refreshingly fun take on the vampire genre.
I can't really say enough good things about this movie. Written, directed by, and starring Onur Tukel, SOB is the story of Eric, a short, hairy, pretentious hipster, just breezing his way through life, annoying everyone who comes in contact with him. That is until a meeting in an alley changes his life forever.
Faced with a new existence, Eric begins to examine everything about the way he was and the way he is now, the good and the bad. Increased sexual prowess of course, but also what it means to be alive, to be in love, all that good shit. I'm making it sound really deep, and it is, but the movie handles all of these issues in a way that's not at all heavy handed. It never strays from the tone it sets in the films opening scene.
Tukel, is a one man tour de force, pretty much carries the movie as he's in just about every shot. The dialog is quick and snappy, at times it seems like he may even be riffing, but it never slows down. It's funny and crude, but endearing enough to tie it all together.
I'm fairly certain it was shot entirely in Brooklyn, and it really captures the look and atmosphere of the city wonderfully.
There are times when some of it can get a bit long winded, but the story is solid, and the performances are all excellent. The gore is good, but there's not a lot of it. That's OK though, this isn't that kind of movie.
I guess the highest praise I can give this movie, is that for all the clunkers I watch, sometimes I stumble upon something like this, a movie full of nobody I've ever heard, obviously shot on a low budget, but an absolute joy to watch that makes me want to share it with others.
I can't really say enough good things about this movie. Written, directed by, and starring Onur Tukel, SOB is the story of Eric, a short, hairy, pretentious hipster, just breezing his way through life, annoying everyone who comes in contact with him. That is until a meeting in an alley changes his life forever.
Faced with a new existence, Eric begins to examine everything about the way he was and the way he is now, the good and the bad. Increased sexual prowess of course, but also what it means to be alive, to be in love, all that good shit. I'm making it sound really deep, and it is, but the movie handles all of these issues in a way that's not at all heavy handed. It never strays from the tone it sets in the films opening scene.
Tukel, is a one man tour de force, pretty much carries the movie as he's in just about every shot. The dialog is quick and snappy, at times it seems like he may even be riffing, but it never slows down. It's funny and crude, but endearing enough to tie it all together.
I'm fairly certain it was shot entirely in Brooklyn, and it really captures the look and atmosphere of the city wonderfully.
There are times when some of it can get a bit long winded, but the story is solid, and the performances are all excellent. The gore is good, but there's not a lot of it. That's OK though, this isn't that kind of movie.
I guess the highest praise I can give this movie, is that for all the clunkers I watch, sometimes I stumble upon something like this, a movie full of nobody I've ever heard, obviously shot on a low budget, but an absolute joy to watch that makes me want to share it with others.
2014 Horror Fest: Slumber Party Massacre 3: 33 Out Of 100 Stars
SPM 3 is a standalone movie, ignoring the storyline from either of the first two movies, but borrowing liberally from the plot of the original. It also throws a child molestation storyline in just for good measure. Good, stupid, measure.
From 1990, Julies parents are gone for the weekend so she's gonna have a slumber party. The opening scene where they're playing volleyball on the beach is cheesy fun, I'll admit that much.
Once the film kicks into gear though, there's just too much going on. Besides the 6 or 7 girls, there are 3 boyfriends, a creepy neighbor, a dorky hanger on, another creepy kid following them around all day and a hunk who used to go to school with the kids. Just too many fucking characters and a silly attempt to build a mystery around who the actual killer is.
Just like the original, once they realize there's a killer in the house they can't figure out what to do. Never mind that there are at least 10 of them this time, they're still utterly confounded as to how to get help when they could all just, ya know, leave together. They try calling the police, but apparently the town only has one cop, and he both answers the phones and responds to them, and he just can't be bothered with a bunch of hysterical girls. Oy.
The chase scenes are laughable, but not much fun. The girls, for all their trying, can't figure out how to open a door or unlock anything.
The final 30 minutes are perplexing to say the least. The more shit that happens, the less and less effort is made to make anything look real. At one point an apartment wrestling video breaks out. Girls literally stand around for minutes watching the killer struggle with one of their half naked friends. There's fun cheese, and then there's cheese that's just so horribly insulting to your intelligence that it makes you want to put a drill through your own head.
The acting is wooden, the characters offer nothing that makes you care much about any of them and the killers motivations are silly. There's some T&A, but mostly it's just really obvious body doubles, including a shot of a girl whipping off her bra, we see a pair of boobs, and then in the next shot she's got her bra back on. Don't insult me like that you stupid movie.
Dumb in every way, Slumber Party Massacre 3 is a movie that knows what to do, but has no idea at all how to do it.
From 1990, Julies parents are gone for the weekend so she's gonna have a slumber party. The opening scene where they're playing volleyball on the beach is cheesy fun, I'll admit that much.
Once the film kicks into gear though, there's just too much going on. Besides the 6 or 7 girls, there are 3 boyfriends, a creepy neighbor, a dorky hanger on, another creepy kid following them around all day and a hunk who used to go to school with the kids. Just too many fucking characters and a silly attempt to build a mystery around who the actual killer is.
Just like the original, once they realize there's a killer in the house they can't figure out what to do. Never mind that there are at least 10 of them this time, they're still utterly confounded as to how to get help when they could all just, ya know, leave together. They try calling the police, but apparently the town only has one cop, and he both answers the phones and responds to them, and he just can't be bothered with a bunch of hysterical girls. Oy.
The chase scenes are laughable, but not much fun. The girls, for all their trying, can't figure out how to open a door or unlock anything.
The final 30 minutes are perplexing to say the least. The more shit that happens, the less and less effort is made to make anything look real. At one point an apartment wrestling video breaks out. Girls literally stand around for minutes watching the killer struggle with one of their half naked friends. There's fun cheese, and then there's cheese that's just so horribly insulting to your intelligence that it makes you want to put a drill through your own head.
The acting is wooden, the characters offer nothing that makes you care much about any of them and the killers motivations are silly. There's some T&A, but mostly it's just really obvious body doubles, including a shot of a girl whipping off her bra, we see a pair of boobs, and then in the next shot she's got her bra back on. Don't insult me like that you stupid movie.
Dumb in every way, Slumber Party Massacre 3 is a movie that knows what to do, but has no idea at all how to do it.
Monday, October 27, 2014
2014 Horror Fest: Slumber Party Massacre 2: 73 Out Of 100 Stars
Cheesier than a dairy farm, and every bit as delicious. This sequel from 1987, five years after the original, is like an after school special about abstinence, on acid. About an hour into this thing I just started to assume that I was high. I don't remember taking any drugs, but it seems like the most logical explanation for the things I was seeing.
The lovely Crystal Bernard, pre Wings and probably right about the time of It's A Living, assumes the role of Courtney, the little sister of the heroine from the first Slumber Party Massacre. She's 17 now and has the hots for Matt. She even dreams about him, running around topless in his too short 80's shorts, catching footballs and smiling that hunky smile. Unfortunately she also dreams about the night half the girls in the neighborhood got cut to pieces and her poor sister, locked in mental institution. And oh yeah, she also dreams about a John Travolta lookalike, dressed head to toe in leather, sporting a giant guitar with a drill attached to the end of it, singing, dancing and trying to rape her.
So anyway, her and some girls from school have a band, and we get treated to multiple scenes of them 'playing'. It's so fantastically 80's.
One of the girls dads just bought a condo in a new development and they decide to go up for the weekend and party. Despite the bad dreams she's been having, Courtney is able to convince her mom to let her go.
Of course once they get there, there's the usual drinking, laughing and unleashing of boobs. Actually there's not a lot of nudity but all the girls are very attractive in an 80's kind of way and there is plenty of tease, though a nice swimsuit is as far Crystal goes.
Some boys show up, including the fella Crystal has a crush on. Problem is that her dreams are starting to turn into hallucinations, ranging from oven roaster chickens coming to life and pooping all over her, to exploding zits. Then, every time she starts to think she might be ready to go all the way with Hunky McHunkerson, she has another dream featuring the singing rapist, warning her not to go all the way.
You'd think that once the killing starts the movie would start to make a little more sense. You'd be sooooo wrong. The chase & kill scenes are pretty standard, except for the minor inclusion of the killer stopping from time to time to sing rockabilly songs, cackle, and dance.
Things wrap up fairly nicely in a way that explains things nearly as best it can, although honestly, nothing can fully or adequately explain what the fuck we just watched.
At just over 70 minutes it doesn't wear out it's welcome or stretch things out needlessly. Like I said, the girls are pretty damn attractive, there's a boob or two and a ton of cheesecake shots. The acting for the most part is spot on, save for the one guy who grunts after everything he says for no apparent reason. The effects and gore are pretty damn good, but minimal.
Stammeringly bizarre and chock full of nostalgic fun, Slumber Party Massacre 2 is an enjoyable romp that couldn't be any more 80's if Bruce Springsteen & Ronald Reagan showed up to stop the killer by challenging him to a Moonwalking contest.
The lovely Crystal Bernard, pre Wings and probably right about the time of It's A Living, assumes the role of Courtney, the little sister of the heroine from the first Slumber Party Massacre. She's 17 now and has the hots for Matt. She even dreams about him, running around topless in his too short 80's shorts, catching footballs and smiling that hunky smile. Unfortunately she also dreams about the night half the girls in the neighborhood got cut to pieces and her poor sister, locked in mental institution. And oh yeah, she also dreams about a John Travolta lookalike, dressed head to toe in leather, sporting a giant guitar with a drill attached to the end of it, singing, dancing and trying to rape her.
So anyway, her and some girls from school have a band, and we get treated to multiple scenes of them 'playing'. It's so fantastically 80's.
One of the girls dads just bought a condo in a new development and they decide to go up for the weekend and party. Despite the bad dreams she's been having, Courtney is able to convince her mom to let her go.
Of course once they get there, there's the usual drinking, laughing and unleashing of boobs. Actually there's not a lot of nudity but all the girls are very attractive in an 80's kind of way and there is plenty of tease, though a nice swimsuit is as far Crystal goes.
Some boys show up, including the fella Crystal has a crush on. Problem is that her dreams are starting to turn into hallucinations, ranging from oven roaster chickens coming to life and pooping all over her, to exploding zits. Then, every time she starts to think she might be ready to go all the way with Hunky McHunkerson, she has another dream featuring the singing rapist, warning her not to go all the way.
You'd think that once the killing starts the movie would start to make a little more sense. You'd be sooooo wrong. The chase & kill scenes are pretty standard, except for the minor inclusion of the killer stopping from time to time to sing rockabilly songs, cackle, and dance.
Things wrap up fairly nicely in a way that explains things nearly as best it can, although honestly, nothing can fully or adequately explain what the fuck we just watched.
At just over 70 minutes it doesn't wear out it's welcome or stretch things out needlessly. Like I said, the girls are pretty damn attractive, there's a boob or two and a ton of cheesecake shots. The acting for the most part is spot on, save for the one guy who grunts after everything he says for no apparent reason. The effects and gore are pretty damn good, but minimal.
Stammeringly bizarre and chock full of nostalgic fun, Slumber Party Massacre 2 is an enjoyable romp that couldn't be any more 80's if Bruce Springsteen & Ronald Reagan showed up to stop the killer by challenging him to a Moonwalking contest.
2014 Horror Fest: The Slumber Party Massacre: 65 Out Of 100 Stars
Yes, yes, yes. A bunch of teenage girls are having a slumber party, and there will be a massacre.
From 1982, this little diddy is a wonderful nostalgia piece. Harkening back to a bygone era of metal trash cans that you just threw anything in, $6 pizzas, having to give the police your address when you call, teenage girls taking gym without any bras on, dumping half a bag of sugar in a glass pitcher to make Kool-Aid, and when going all the way still meant something.
Short on story but long on boobs and bludgeoning, Slumber Party Massacre is by no means a good movie, but it gives you exactly what it suggests it will, and I applaud that.
A bunch of teenage girls are going to have a get together later tonight to reminisce and celebrate their friendship. No boys allowed. Of course the boys will show up, and they'll wish they hadn't. Also not invited is the next door neighbor, the new girl in town who isn't quite yet part of the clique. Why they decided to have a slumber party on the same night a mass murderer has broken out of jail I'll never know.
Most of the dialog is cheesily laughable and looks like it was done in one take, but it's delivered by half naked girls so who gives a shit. The overall quality of the girls isn't stellar but there are a couple of lookers, and honestly it's the cheese that carries it, the gratuitous shower scenes & nudity is just the cherry on the sundae.
So the girls get some beers and some doobs and argue about last nights Dodgers game, even going so far as to call their gym teacher to ask how the runs were scored. Where the fuck were these girls when I was in High School? Some boys show up of course, and it's all downhill from there.
Once the head cutting starts, it's a barrage of bad decisions, inept escape attempts, and face palmed reasoning. The chuckles come fast and furious as a group of 6 teenagers can't figure out a fucking way to escape the house or get the attention of another living soul in the middle of a residential neighborhood. Even when faced with imminent doom, the girls still have time to sit on the living room floor, cowering in fear, and complain of being hungry. It's a good thing that pizza guy made it. Well, sort of made it.
The killer, looking somewhat like Mojo Nixon on amphetamines, is a blast, especially during the climactic chase scenes. The slow motion screams of terror that sound more like burps only add to the films ambiance.
While there's nothing groundbreaking or extra stellar, SPM delivers all the key elements to a good slasher flick and hits all the right notes to make it an enjoyable watch. You'll enjoy this Slumber Party. One way or another, some girls are getting drilled.
From 1982, this little diddy is a wonderful nostalgia piece. Harkening back to a bygone era of metal trash cans that you just threw anything in, $6 pizzas, having to give the police your address when you call, teenage girls taking gym without any bras on, dumping half a bag of sugar in a glass pitcher to make Kool-Aid, and when going all the way still meant something.
Short on story but long on boobs and bludgeoning, Slumber Party Massacre is by no means a good movie, but it gives you exactly what it suggests it will, and I applaud that.
A bunch of teenage girls are going to have a get together later tonight to reminisce and celebrate their friendship. No boys allowed. Of course the boys will show up, and they'll wish they hadn't. Also not invited is the next door neighbor, the new girl in town who isn't quite yet part of the clique. Why they decided to have a slumber party on the same night a mass murderer has broken out of jail I'll never know.
Most of the dialog is cheesily laughable and looks like it was done in one take, but it's delivered by half naked girls so who gives a shit. The overall quality of the girls isn't stellar but there are a couple of lookers, and honestly it's the cheese that carries it, the gratuitous shower scenes & nudity is just the cherry on the sundae.
So the girls get some beers and some doobs and argue about last nights Dodgers game, even going so far as to call their gym teacher to ask how the runs were scored. Where the fuck were these girls when I was in High School? Some boys show up of course, and it's all downhill from there.
Once the head cutting starts, it's a barrage of bad decisions, inept escape attempts, and face palmed reasoning. The chuckles come fast and furious as a group of 6 teenagers can't figure out a fucking way to escape the house or get the attention of another living soul in the middle of a residential neighborhood. Even when faced with imminent doom, the girls still have time to sit on the living room floor, cowering in fear, and complain of being hungry. It's a good thing that pizza guy made it. Well, sort of made it.
The killer, looking somewhat like Mojo Nixon on amphetamines, is a blast, especially during the climactic chase scenes. The slow motion screams of terror that sound more like burps only add to the films ambiance.
While there's nothing groundbreaking or extra stellar, SPM delivers all the key elements to a good slasher flick and hits all the right notes to make it an enjoyable watch. You'll enjoy this Slumber Party. One way or another, some girls are getting drilled.
2014 Horror Fest: Bride Of Re-Animator: 34 Out Of 100 Stars
A little better, but still no. Just, no.
Doctors Cain and West are back for more hijinks in this sequel that's a little better, if only because it dismisses with all the pretenses of story, but it's still fucking stupid. Barbara Crampton is not back for this installment. I guess even she has her standards. Instead we get a double shot of Kathleen Kinmont & Fabiana Udenio, both of whom you'll recognize if you watched TV in the 90's.
Fresh off a tour of duty as medics in the Peruvian civil war, and I can only imagine that the writers of this movie have a particular fondness for Peru and it's exports, the doctors return home to continue their research and bring more dead things back to life.
Maybe it's just me, but a movie this cheesy, this insanely silly, this fucking ridiculous, ought to be a lot more fun than it is.
If you can hang in till the end there are some really good gross out moments and the gore overall is better. The wild combinations of body parts spliced together, such as the 4 fingers with an eye, that gets loose and run around the house, are funny but not particularly worth enduring the rest of the film.
I guess my main complaint is that the movie seems to honest to goodness be taking itself very seriously in a lot of the dramatic moments, and while it's funny in its ridiculousness, it just kind of falls flat.
I think this may be a series that I just don't, maybe you'll have a better time, but I don't suggest you risk it.
Doctors Cain and West are back for more hijinks in this sequel that's a little better, if only because it dismisses with all the pretenses of story, but it's still fucking stupid. Barbara Crampton is not back for this installment. I guess even she has her standards. Instead we get a double shot of Kathleen Kinmont & Fabiana Udenio, both of whom you'll recognize if you watched TV in the 90's.
Fresh off a tour of duty as medics in the Peruvian civil war, and I can only imagine that the writers of this movie have a particular fondness for Peru and it's exports, the doctors return home to continue their research and bring more dead things back to life.
Maybe it's just me, but a movie this cheesy, this insanely silly, this fucking ridiculous, ought to be a lot more fun than it is.
If you can hang in till the end there are some really good gross out moments and the gore overall is better. The wild combinations of body parts spliced together, such as the 4 fingers with an eye, that gets loose and run around the house, are funny but not particularly worth enduring the rest of the film.
I guess my main complaint is that the movie seems to honest to goodness be taking itself very seriously in a lot of the dramatic moments, and while it's funny in its ridiculousness, it just kind of falls flat.
I think this may be a series that I just don't, maybe you'll have a better time, but I don't suggest you risk it.
2014 Horror Fest: Re-Animator: 28 Out Of 100 Stars
Fuck you Re-Animator. Fuck you right in your stupid fucking face. And fuck me for thinking with my pants and going against my better judgement just because Barbara Crampton gets her boobies out.
Sweet lord is this a stupid fucking movie. I mean...sweet lord is this a stupid fucking movie. There's not a single fucking thing in the entire film that doesn't seem like it was thought up on the fly as a way to fill time before the special effects take over.
Barbara Crampton, who I first saw in Body Double when I was like 11 or so, and who is pretty much responsible for me ruining the tape heads on my first VCR, stars as the daughter of a Dean at a medical school. She's dating the hot shot med student and all is good in the world until a creepy fucker shows up and starts killing cats and bringing dead people kind of back to life. Oh, and there may be a vampire too, but that kind of gets dropped halfway through the movie.
I have to believe that lot of this movie was left on the cutting room floor and something bad happened during the editing process. I have to believe that for my own sanity. The performances range from bad to baffling. A couple of the characters I'm not even sure what they were doing, I've got a theory that much like an improv exercise, some of the actors just switched characters from time to time. Crampton is naked a few times, and it is glorious, but unfortunately most of her screen time is spent acting.
If you know anything about this movie it's probably because of the sort of iconic gore and in particular a scene where a dismembered head gives Ms. Crampton a good licking. But the truth is that a lot of the effects are pretty cheesy, and not just because of age, so the movie doesn't even really excel in that regard. God damn it's just terrible.
I've never gotten a good vibe from this movie. And despite what my better angels were telling me, I just couldn't resist the idea of a movie full of Barabara Crampton running around naked. I'd like to say I've learned my lesson, but I have Bride Of Re-Animator sitting right here, and like the song says, "nothing like a bad decision says who you are".
Sweet lord is this a stupid fucking movie. I mean...sweet lord is this a stupid fucking movie. There's not a single fucking thing in the entire film that doesn't seem like it was thought up on the fly as a way to fill time before the special effects take over.
Barbara Crampton, who I first saw in Body Double when I was like 11 or so, and who is pretty much responsible for me ruining the tape heads on my first VCR, stars as the daughter of a Dean at a medical school. She's dating the hot shot med student and all is good in the world until a creepy fucker shows up and starts killing cats and bringing dead people kind of back to life. Oh, and there may be a vampire too, but that kind of gets dropped halfway through the movie.
I have to believe that lot of this movie was left on the cutting room floor and something bad happened during the editing process. I have to believe that for my own sanity. The performances range from bad to baffling. A couple of the characters I'm not even sure what they were doing, I've got a theory that much like an improv exercise, some of the actors just switched characters from time to time. Crampton is naked a few times, and it is glorious, but unfortunately most of her screen time is spent acting.
If you know anything about this movie it's probably because of the sort of iconic gore and in particular a scene where a dismembered head gives Ms. Crampton a good licking. But the truth is that a lot of the effects are pretty cheesy, and not just because of age, so the movie doesn't even really excel in that regard. God damn it's just terrible.
I've never gotten a good vibe from this movie. And despite what my better angels were telling me, I just couldn't resist the idea of a movie full of Barabara Crampton running around naked. I'd like to say I've learned my lesson, but I have Bride Of Re-Animator sitting right here, and like the song says, "nothing like a bad decision says who you are".
2014 Horror Fest: The Burning: 25 Out Of 100 Stars
From 1981, this Friday The 13th ripoff written by Harvey Weinstein somehow manages to take a camp full of kids, a murderer on the loose and a good amount of naked young women, and bore you to fucking tears.
The story isn't content with not making much sense, but it actually goes out of its way to either not make you give a shit about any of the heroes, or to actively wish death upon them.
We start off five years ago, when Todd and some of his friends are tired of being bullied by the camp groundskeeper, so they decide to try and scare him with a little prank involving a skull and some candles. Shit goes real wrong real quick though, and the poor groundskeeper ends up getting burned to a crisp.
Fast forward to present day and good old Todd is a counselor at another camp across the way from where HE WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR BURNING ANOTHER MAN ALIVE. But fear not, Todd is really a good guy, just going about his life, trying to help the kids through their awkward teenage years.
Among the kids in the camp are Jason Alexander and Fisher Stevens, both of whom put their naked asses proudly on display if that was ever a thing you thought you might want to see. There are a pair of toughs who are always pinning their sweethearts in spots they don't want to be in and borderline raping them. The girls are always like "no, no, no...giggle...giggle". Then there's Alfred, who I think we're supposed to be rooting for, even though he spends most of his time peeping in the girls shower and acting weird as shit, and then moaning about how nobody likes him. He spends most of the movie with a look on his face reminiscent of a 6 year old seeing an airplane for the first time.
So Todd and another counselor are taking the kids on an overnight canoeing trip right near where he burned that dude to a crisp 5 years ago. Then, just because he's a massive cock, he sits the kids down at the campfire and recounts the tale of what happened that night. Of course the kids think it's just a made up story, but everyone watching at home is just like, "what a fucking cock this guy is".
From there we get a slew of unimaginative kills on kids we don't care about. The gore is nothing special at all, and I'm wondering if maybe this isn't supposed to be a camp for visually impaired kids, because the killer is always about a foot away from them and yet they never see the guy. There's a particularly perplexing scene where a bunch of kids are on a makeshift raft in the middle of a river and somehow not a single one of them can avoid getting chopped to pieces.
The climactic scene takes place in what somehow appears to be both ancient ruins, and an old mineshaft, in the middle of the woods. The tension just builds and builds as we watch people run in circles and peer around corners for what feels like forever. Mercifully it ends in a whirlwind of 'action' and flashbacks that are hard to tell apart, and certainly unneeded.
The story is lame enough, even if the main characters weren't dull dickheads. But then you layer on the complete lack of atmosphere and the redundant kills and all you're left with are a few pair of pretty bouncing boobies. There are apparently some folks, a large number in fact, who consider this a classic. They're idiots.
The story isn't content with not making much sense, but it actually goes out of its way to either not make you give a shit about any of the heroes, or to actively wish death upon them.
We start off five years ago, when Todd and some of his friends are tired of being bullied by the camp groundskeeper, so they decide to try and scare him with a little prank involving a skull and some candles. Shit goes real wrong real quick though, and the poor groundskeeper ends up getting burned to a crisp.
Fast forward to present day and good old Todd is a counselor at another camp across the way from where HE WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR BURNING ANOTHER MAN ALIVE. But fear not, Todd is really a good guy, just going about his life, trying to help the kids through their awkward teenage years.
Among the kids in the camp are Jason Alexander and Fisher Stevens, both of whom put their naked asses proudly on display if that was ever a thing you thought you might want to see. There are a pair of toughs who are always pinning their sweethearts in spots they don't want to be in and borderline raping them. The girls are always like "no, no, no...giggle...giggle". Then there's Alfred, who I think we're supposed to be rooting for, even though he spends most of his time peeping in the girls shower and acting weird as shit, and then moaning about how nobody likes him. He spends most of the movie with a look on his face reminiscent of a 6 year old seeing an airplane for the first time.
So Todd and another counselor are taking the kids on an overnight canoeing trip right near where he burned that dude to a crisp 5 years ago. Then, just because he's a massive cock, he sits the kids down at the campfire and recounts the tale of what happened that night. Of course the kids think it's just a made up story, but everyone watching at home is just like, "what a fucking cock this guy is".
From there we get a slew of unimaginative kills on kids we don't care about. The gore is nothing special at all, and I'm wondering if maybe this isn't supposed to be a camp for visually impaired kids, because the killer is always about a foot away from them and yet they never see the guy. There's a particularly perplexing scene where a bunch of kids are on a makeshift raft in the middle of a river and somehow not a single one of them can avoid getting chopped to pieces.
The climactic scene takes place in what somehow appears to be both ancient ruins, and an old mineshaft, in the middle of the woods. The tension just builds and builds as we watch people run in circles and peer around corners for what feels like forever. Mercifully it ends in a whirlwind of 'action' and flashbacks that are hard to tell apart, and certainly unneeded.
The story is lame enough, even if the main characters weren't dull dickheads. But then you layer on the complete lack of atmosphere and the redundant kills and all you're left with are a few pair of pretty bouncing boobies. There are apparently some folks, a large number in fact, who consider this a classic. They're idiots.
Wednesday, October 22, 2014
2014 Horror Fest: House Of Bodies: 22 Out Of 100 Stars
Produced by, and featuring a cameo by Queen Latifah, starring Terrance Howard & Peter Fonda, and featuring a cavalcade of hot chicks who have no aversion to showing off their asses, House Of Bodies is a fucking bore of a movie with a silly ass script.
Peter Fonda killed and mutilated a bunch of women, Terrance Howard is the cop that put him away. Now that more women are being killed in the exact same way, Howard gives Fonda a visit in jail for some help figuring out what's going on. It's all very Silence Of The Lambs, without any of the quality. At the same time, the house that Fonda did all his murdering and eviscerating in is currently being used by a bunch of chicks to run a website where whack jobs watch them 24/7 and even sometimes request that they reenact some of the iconic murders that occurred there. But wait, it gets dumber.
Our heroine is a new girl, and she's cute and shy and has trouble even chatting with the guys watching her online. That is until she meets a diabetic, deaf/mute All-American kid who hacks into the system in order to chat with her and they have a meet cute more apropos for an ice cream social than a torture porn website.
Now all the bedrooms in this place are located off a hallway that can't be any more than 15 feet long, yet somehow a killer starts picking girls off without anyone in the house or watching online noticing. When the power goes out, our heroes only option is to try and turn the power back on from his computer, because he's a hacker, and because he's mute, and because the script is fucking stupid.
There's really not a single redeeming thing going on here. The parts with the girls in the house are ridiculous, the parts with Howard & Fonda are supposed to be leading to a compelling mystery, but most of their dialog seems as if it's coming from a general outline and not an actual script. The 'action', as it were is laughable, unless of course a mute kid, suffering from low blood sugar trying to call 9-1-1 sounds like your idea of excitement. The gore is minimal, and no amount of pretty bottoms would have been able to save this junker.
Stay out of this house.
Peter Fonda killed and mutilated a bunch of women, Terrance Howard is the cop that put him away. Now that more women are being killed in the exact same way, Howard gives Fonda a visit in jail for some help figuring out what's going on. It's all very Silence Of The Lambs, without any of the quality. At the same time, the house that Fonda did all his murdering and eviscerating in is currently being used by a bunch of chicks to run a website where whack jobs watch them 24/7 and even sometimes request that they reenact some of the iconic murders that occurred there. But wait, it gets dumber.
Our heroine is a new girl, and she's cute and shy and has trouble even chatting with the guys watching her online. That is until she meets a diabetic, deaf/mute All-American kid who hacks into the system in order to chat with her and they have a meet cute more apropos for an ice cream social than a torture porn website.
Now all the bedrooms in this place are located off a hallway that can't be any more than 15 feet long, yet somehow a killer starts picking girls off without anyone in the house or watching online noticing. When the power goes out, our heroes only option is to try and turn the power back on from his computer, because he's a hacker, and because he's mute, and because the script is fucking stupid.
There's really not a single redeeming thing going on here. The parts with the girls in the house are ridiculous, the parts with Howard & Fonda are supposed to be leading to a compelling mystery, but most of their dialog seems as if it's coming from a general outline and not an actual script. The 'action', as it were is laughable, unless of course a mute kid, suffering from low blood sugar trying to call 9-1-1 sounds like your idea of excitement. The gore is minimal, and no amount of pretty bottoms would have been able to save this junker.
Stay out of this house.
2014 Horror Fest: 100 Bloody Acres: 73 Out Of 100 Stars
There's a good stretch of time in 100 Bloody Acres where you know all the pieces are in place for a really good movie, they just don't quite mesh all together, but then it hits its stride and never looks back.
3 friends on their way to a music festival break down in the Australian country side and get mixed up with a couple of brothers who've developed a rather disturbing way of helping their crops grow. Leaning on very strong performances from Angus Sampson and Damon Herriman as the brothers, the film does take a while to build, but it's full of charm and well worth waiting out the slow build to get to the hilarious final act.
There is a fair amount of gore and some tension early, but this is a comedy through and through. The most engaging thing about the movie is that the characters all develop, they aren't cut and dry from beginning to end. Every decision that the characters make lead to, and affect the next decision they make. It's a strong script is what I'm saying.
There's no nudity, but Anna McGahan as lead female is scrumptious and scantily clad most of the time. The look and soundtrack of the movie are also big pluses.
If you're in the mood to laugh and see some people get shredded up, 100 Bloody Acres is bloody good fun, mate.
3 friends on their way to a music festival break down in the Australian country side and get mixed up with a couple of brothers who've developed a rather disturbing way of helping their crops grow. Leaning on very strong performances from Angus Sampson and Damon Herriman as the brothers, the film does take a while to build, but it's full of charm and well worth waiting out the slow build to get to the hilarious final act.
There is a fair amount of gore and some tension early, but this is a comedy through and through. The most engaging thing about the movie is that the characters all develop, they aren't cut and dry from beginning to end. Every decision that the characters make lead to, and affect the next decision they make. It's a strong script is what I'm saying.
There's no nudity, but Anna McGahan as lead female is scrumptious and scantily clad most of the time. The look and soundtrack of the movie are also big pluses.
If you're in the mood to laugh and see some people get shredded up, 100 Bloody Acres is bloody good fun, mate.
2014 Horror Fest: Coffin Baby: 17 Out Of 100 Stars
Ughhh. Let's see here, we start out in 1958 and some allusions to a murder that happened, then we fast forward to today where someone or something, who gives a fuck, is terrorizing LA. We know this because every LA landmark that exists gets a shot. Some girls get murdered, a girl who looks like Katie Holmes gets kidnapped, lots of torture porn ensues, the girl yells a lot.
Long, dull scenes of bodies being cut up are interspersed with that appears to be an attempt at a story. Some guy who looks like Eddie Furlong wears a douchey hat and gets interrogated by police in an approximation of acting.
About an hour into the movie Bruce Dern shows up quoting scripture and you'll start to wonder if someone slipped you some acid. Then the movie kind of ties up things you kind of don't understand but certainly don't give a dump about.
The gore is really good but completely wasted. No nudity. I think there's a story, but fuck if I know what it is. The writing is hogwash and the acting is laughable. If you watch this movie in the midst of diarrhea, it'll still be 2nd most artistic thing happening.
Long, dull scenes of bodies being cut up are interspersed with that appears to be an attempt at a story. Some guy who looks like Eddie Furlong wears a douchey hat and gets interrogated by police in an approximation of acting.
About an hour into the movie Bruce Dern shows up quoting scripture and you'll start to wonder if someone slipped you some acid. Then the movie kind of ties up things you kind of don't understand but certainly don't give a dump about.
The gore is really good but completely wasted. No nudity. I think there's a story, but fuck if I know what it is. The writing is hogwash and the acting is laughable. If you watch this movie in the midst of diarrhea, it'll still be 2nd most artistic thing happening.
2014 Horror Fest: Zombies Of Mass Destruction: 38 Out Of 100 Stars
Zombies Of Mass Destruction is that hot chick who seems a little whacky at first, but you can deal with it because, ya know, boobs. But the longer you're around her you realize she's bat shit crazy and it really just isn't worth the trouble anymore.
The story of a small Long Island town that gets overrun with zombies, ZMD opens up with funny characters, crisp dialog and is just all around fun for the first 30 minutes or so. And then it just falls off a god damn cliff with heavy handed preaching, and long, oh so long, drawn out scenes involving anti gay and anti foreigner wackos.
Set in 2003, the main players are an Iranian girl and a gay couple, all 3 of whom are engaging characters and well acted, but then the Zombie outbreak occurs and the movie breaks way the fuck down as A nut job thinks the Iranian girl is a terrorist, and the gay guys end up stuck in a Church with the townsfolk who are convinced that the zombies are a sign of the apocalypse and attempt to convert our gay friends. And it just fucking meanders it's way through most of the last hour, boring and annoying the shit out the viewer.
The shame of it all is that the gore is a ton of fun, and when it wants to be funny it succeeds in spades. Unfortunately it seems more interested in concentrating on silly right wing stereotypes in an attempt to get it's message across. The problem is that when you write your antagonists as silly as possible, the message becomes just as silly. It's lazy, humorless and carries no emotional weight.
Not the strongest recommendation to avoid, but be prepared to bail about halfway through.
The story of a small Long Island town that gets overrun with zombies, ZMD opens up with funny characters, crisp dialog and is just all around fun for the first 30 minutes or so. And then it just falls off a god damn cliff with heavy handed preaching, and long, oh so long, drawn out scenes involving anti gay and anti foreigner wackos.
Set in 2003, the main players are an Iranian girl and a gay couple, all 3 of whom are engaging characters and well acted, but then the Zombie outbreak occurs and the movie breaks way the fuck down as A nut job thinks the Iranian girl is a terrorist, and the gay guys end up stuck in a Church with the townsfolk who are convinced that the zombies are a sign of the apocalypse and attempt to convert our gay friends. And it just fucking meanders it's way through most of the last hour, boring and annoying the shit out the viewer.
The shame of it all is that the gore is a ton of fun, and when it wants to be funny it succeeds in spades. Unfortunately it seems more interested in concentrating on silly right wing stereotypes in an attempt to get it's message across. The problem is that when you write your antagonists as silly as possible, the message becomes just as silly. It's lazy, humorless and carries no emotional weight.
Not the strongest recommendation to avoid, but be prepared to bail about halfway through.
2014 Horror Fest: Paranormal Asylum, The Revenge of Typhoid Mary: 5 Out Of 100 Stars
From the watchers of Paranormal Activity comes A movie so bereft of quality in every aspect of it's production, from conception to final credit, so devoid of a single interesting or original idea, that I hope whoever made it is working in a pizza place right now, wondering what went wrong.
Two guys with Richard Grieco beards want to film a documentary about Typhoid Mary in this bad script where the actors explain everything in great detail in the first 20 minutes so the audience understands exactly how mundanely in depth the writer thinks his characters and story are.
So these two buddies from College, one a horror nut and the other a failed director who looks like Tom Cruise circa 1988 with a chromosome or two missing, along with the horror nuts wife, decide to go into this old asylum where Typhoid Mary died and hook up a bunch of cameras to try and detect ghosts or some shit. Oh goodie, there's nothing I enjoy more than numerous exhilarating shots of computer monitors, complete with the loud squelching and humming that comes with said shots to let us know there's something scary about the nothing that's happening. I also just love when the red "REC" graphic is on screen so much it might as well get top billing. At this point I'd rather watch a documentary on the history of editing software than another shitty movie full of these shitty effects.
At one point while conducting interviews with people somehow related to the Typhoid Mary case, Tom Cruise talks with a young lady whose Uncle was involved. She say's that she doesn't know much about the story but he's welcome to look through a bunch of old documents she's inherited, if he doesn't mind dark, dirty basements. They both react to this statement as if it's sexual innuendo in what appears to be a beguiling attempt to act as if they're flirting.
It just gets worse from there. The guys wife gets possessed when she tries to perform a seance, even though her acknowledged knowledge of seances amounts to "my mom used to do them". This leads to shots DIRECTLY lifted from Paranormal Activity of her laying in a bed with a camera focused on her. Confronted with a catatonic and possessed wife, and "spooky" shit happening to them, they guys lament that this is actually good, because they can probably get rich off of this documentary.
Our two leads argue a lot, leading to scenes of conflict for no other reason than that the writer knows that conflict is a thing that happens between characters in movies, motivations or sense be damned.
There are stupefying scenes involving a scientist and an exorcist that exist only to make what up until this point was a dumb script, into a head shakingly intricate, and if possible, even dumber script.
The acting and writing are horrible. The direction is derivative. The film is dark but lacks any atmosphere and the one or two scares are just cheap jump moments. I've rarely watched an entire movie and been so uncaring about the fates of any of the characters.
This movie is not to content to just suck, it wants to suck in frighteningly intricate detail. I know a few amateur film makers, and I've seen them make some bad movies, but in their heads they've got what they think are really amazing stories. You never wanna be the guy to sit them down and say, whoa buddy, nobody but you could possibly give a shit about any of this, don't max out your credit cards and waste countless peoples lives on this crap. But someone has to. Maybe somebody should start a crisis hotline for this affliction. I don't know anyone involved with creating this movie, but I know for certain that at some point the guy who wrote this thing sat down with his friends and explained the characters and the story, and did it with excitement and joy, full of vigor, resplendent in the awesomeness of his idea. I hope at least one of his friends smacked the living shit out of him.
Two guys with Richard Grieco beards want to film a documentary about Typhoid Mary in this bad script where the actors explain everything in great detail in the first 20 minutes so the audience understands exactly how mundanely in depth the writer thinks his characters and story are.
So these two buddies from College, one a horror nut and the other a failed director who looks like Tom Cruise circa 1988 with a chromosome or two missing, along with the horror nuts wife, decide to go into this old asylum where Typhoid Mary died and hook up a bunch of cameras to try and detect ghosts or some shit. Oh goodie, there's nothing I enjoy more than numerous exhilarating shots of computer monitors, complete with the loud squelching and humming that comes with said shots to let us know there's something scary about the nothing that's happening. I also just love when the red "REC" graphic is on screen so much it might as well get top billing. At this point I'd rather watch a documentary on the history of editing software than another shitty movie full of these shitty effects.
At one point while conducting interviews with people somehow related to the Typhoid Mary case, Tom Cruise talks with a young lady whose Uncle was involved. She say's that she doesn't know much about the story but he's welcome to look through a bunch of old documents she's inherited, if he doesn't mind dark, dirty basements. They both react to this statement as if it's sexual innuendo in what appears to be a beguiling attempt to act as if they're flirting.
It just gets worse from there. The guys wife gets possessed when she tries to perform a seance, even though her acknowledged knowledge of seances amounts to "my mom used to do them". This leads to shots DIRECTLY lifted from Paranormal Activity of her laying in a bed with a camera focused on her. Confronted with a catatonic and possessed wife, and "spooky" shit happening to them, they guys lament that this is actually good, because they can probably get rich off of this documentary.
Our two leads argue a lot, leading to scenes of conflict for no other reason than that the writer knows that conflict is a thing that happens between characters in movies, motivations or sense be damned.
There are stupefying scenes involving a scientist and an exorcist that exist only to make what up until this point was a dumb script, into a head shakingly intricate, and if possible, even dumber script.
The acting and writing are horrible. The direction is derivative. The film is dark but lacks any atmosphere and the one or two scares are just cheap jump moments. I've rarely watched an entire movie and been so uncaring about the fates of any of the characters.
This movie is not to content to just suck, it wants to suck in frighteningly intricate detail. I know a few amateur film makers, and I've seen them make some bad movies, but in their heads they've got what they think are really amazing stories. You never wanna be the guy to sit them down and say, whoa buddy, nobody but you could possibly give a shit about any of this, don't max out your credit cards and waste countless peoples lives on this crap. But someone has to. Maybe somebody should start a crisis hotline for this affliction. I don't know anyone involved with creating this movie, but I know for certain that at some point the guy who wrote this thing sat down with his friends and explained the characters and the story, and did it with excitement and joy, full of vigor, resplendent in the awesomeness of his idea. I hope at least one of his friends smacked the living shit out of him.
2014 Horror Fest: Don't Blink: 68 Out Of 100 Stars
Don't Blink starts off looking like it's gonna be a rather strenuous watch, piling 10 young adults up for a trip to a secluded Rocky Mountain resort and testing the viewer for the first 20 minutes or so with the standard jibberish writing and character motivations. But slowly and surely the film builds on a couple of levels. Firstly, the writing and the overacting are silly enough to inspire laughter, and secondly, the mystery as to what's going on is actually very well done. In other words, the shit is enjoyable and the good is engaging. By the films third act, when all of the nonsense is out of the way, it actually becomes rather compelling.
Mena Suvari of American Beauty fame gets top billing alongside Brian Austin Green, but believe it or not, and I'm still having trouble wrapping my head around this, it's Green who carries the film. His performance is quite good and helps center things when Zack Wards overacting could have drug the whole thing down.
There's almost no gore, but the scares come more from the tension and the mind fuck of what's happening.
Yes it's full of tropes, and yes a few of the actors are not all that great, but the visuals are crisp, the film looks nice, and Green and Joanna Kelly are both really good. Throw in a legitimately tense mystery that expertly builds and Don't Blink is a rather fun scare fest that will have you on the edge of your seat and provide more than a few wtf moments.
Mena Suvari of American Beauty fame gets top billing alongside Brian Austin Green, but believe it or not, and I'm still having trouble wrapping my head around this, it's Green who carries the film. His performance is quite good and helps center things when Zack Wards overacting could have drug the whole thing down.
There's almost no gore, but the scares come more from the tension and the mind fuck of what's happening.
Yes it's full of tropes, and yes a few of the actors are not all that great, but the visuals are crisp, the film looks nice, and Green and Joanna Kelly are both really good. Throw in a legitimately tense mystery that expertly builds and Don't Blink is a rather fun scare fest that will have you on the edge of your seat and provide more than a few wtf moments.
2014 Horror Fest: Night Of The Living Dead Resurrection: 20 Out Of 100 Stars
Set in Britain and using the Living Dead moniker for no particular reason other than to drive sales, this long, long, long, long, and boring shit fest opens with 10 minutes of a guy driving a car and finishes with about 80 more minutes of a family inside a house doing nothing much.
If you like zombie movies with very few zombies but lots of family melodrama, this is the joint for you.
If you like zombie movies with very few zombies but lots of family melodrama, this is the joint for you.
2014 Horror Fest: Wrong Turn 6: 40 Out Of 100 Stars
And away we go. The Wrong Turn series, while being majorly shit, save for 2012's version, is sort of the signal to me that it's time to start Horror Fest. What is Horror Fest you ask? Well it's a period from mid October till about mid November where I binge on horror movies, some good, some fun, and some shit. I started it a few years back and to not do it would feel like something was missing from life. So no matter what my state of mind, no matter if I'm down in the dumps, sad, or just generally bored with life, Horror Fest is my way of getting in the Holiday spirit. So join me on my journey, wont you?
The Wrong Turn series, up until #5, had been a rather dreadful franchise. The original, starring Eliza Dushku was fair. The next three straight to video releases were horrid, and then out of the blue #5 was a damn good movie. I sort of wish they had stopped there and not tempted fate, but here we are. After taking a year off, Wrong Turn returns with the 6th installment in the series. Will it be as shitty as the 2nd, 3rd and 4th? Or will it keep the momentum of the solid fifth movie?
Well...I can't say that it was uninteresting. Can't really say that it was all that good either, but it had it's moments. I wouldn't call it convoluted, but it certainly seemed to be overly ambitious in it's premise.
A group of twenty somethings, our lead among them, are headed to the back woods where he's inherited an old spa in the middle of nowhere. The back story among the friends is pretty damn silly and verbose. See, the lead worked on Wall Street at some point, then he had a meltdown, lost every ones money, and then tried to kill himself. These are the only people who stood by him. Except half of them still appear not to like him all that much. Add in the fact that the characters are completely stock, such as the pot head, the bitch, and the guy who runs around with a camera all the time, and you just have zero investment in them.
The tie in to the previous films is that the two people currently running the spa, a brother and sister, are sort of ringleaders for the hillbilly clan, and the guy who's inherited the spa is a long lost relative whose sperm is needed to help keep the family tree going, wretched as it may be.
There are some real nice kills and copious amounts of fun gore, including a poor bastard dying via fire hose in quite possibly the worst way to die via fire hose. The problem is that you have to watch a good amount of inane interaction between the characters before anything really starts to happen, and even when it does it's not very dramatic because who could give a fuck. Would it hurt a movie like this to just have a bunch of people who really like each other and are super cool and friendly with each other. It would certainly carry more emotional weight when they get disemboweled.
Four different chicks get a good amount of naked and they're all pretty hot, but something about the sex and nudity was just off. I dunno, the whole tone of the movie is all over the place and nothing really ever feels coherent enough to enjoy. The leads girlfriend and the sister who runs the spa are both gorgeous blondes and at the end of the day I was much more interested in seeing them naked than I was anything else the movie had to offer, and not just because I'm perpetually horny. Then when they do get naked I was kind of wishing they were in a movie that would utilize their nudity better. It's kind of like when an actor gives a great performance in a shitty movie, except the great performances here are boobies.
Anyway, Wrong Turn 6 has good tits and good gore, a few laughs and a nice wince here and there, but it's buried so deep in a world of characters and a story that are at once unoriginal and verbose, that it just never gains any traction. It doesn't help that the writers seem to veer from intricate to inane in their storytelling, not quite being able decipher one from the other.
There's enjoyment to be had here, and you probably wont feel like you've wasted your time watching it, but there's no particular reason to go out of your way to see it.
The Wrong Turn series, up until #5, had been a rather dreadful franchise. The original, starring Eliza Dushku was fair. The next three straight to video releases were horrid, and then out of the blue #5 was a damn good movie. I sort of wish they had stopped there and not tempted fate, but here we are. After taking a year off, Wrong Turn returns with the 6th installment in the series. Will it be as shitty as the 2nd, 3rd and 4th? Or will it keep the momentum of the solid fifth movie?
Well...I can't say that it was uninteresting. Can't really say that it was all that good either, but it had it's moments. I wouldn't call it convoluted, but it certainly seemed to be overly ambitious in it's premise.
A group of twenty somethings, our lead among them, are headed to the back woods where he's inherited an old spa in the middle of nowhere. The back story among the friends is pretty damn silly and verbose. See, the lead worked on Wall Street at some point, then he had a meltdown, lost every ones money, and then tried to kill himself. These are the only people who stood by him. Except half of them still appear not to like him all that much. Add in the fact that the characters are completely stock, such as the pot head, the bitch, and the guy who runs around with a camera all the time, and you just have zero investment in them.
The tie in to the previous films is that the two people currently running the spa, a brother and sister, are sort of ringleaders for the hillbilly clan, and the guy who's inherited the spa is a long lost relative whose sperm is needed to help keep the family tree going, wretched as it may be.
There are some real nice kills and copious amounts of fun gore, including a poor bastard dying via fire hose in quite possibly the worst way to die via fire hose. The problem is that you have to watch a good amount of inane interaction between the characters before anything really starts to happen, and even when it does it's not very dramatic because who could give a fuck. Would it hurt a movie like this to just have a bunch of people who really like each other and are super cool and friendly with each other. It would certainly carry more emotional weight when they get disemboweled.
Four different chicks get a good amount of naked and they're all pretty hot, but something about the sex and nudity was just off. I dunno, the whole tone of the movie is all over the place and nothing really ever feels coherent enough to enjoy. The leads girlfriend and the sister who runs the spa are both gorgeous blondes and at the end of the day I was much more interested in seeing them naked than I was anything else the movie had to offer, and not just because I'm perpetually horny. Then when they do get naked I was kind of wishing they were in a movie that would utilize their nudity better. It's kind of like when an actor gives a great performance in a shitty movie, except the great performances here are boobies.
Anyway, Wrong Turn 6 has good tits and good gore, a few laughs and a nice wince here and there, but it's buried so deep in a world of characters and a story that are at once unoriginal and verbose, that it just never gains any traction. It doesn't help that the writers seem to veer from intricate to inane in their storytelling, not quite being able decipher one from the other.
There's enjoyment to be had here, and you probably wont feel like you've wasted your time watching it, but there's no particular reason to go out of your way to see it.
Saturday, October 18, 2014
Hell Baby: 34 Out Of 100 Stars
From the two dudes who created Reno 911, comes a movie not nearly as funny. A young pregnant couple moves into their first new house and evil spirits try and fuck with them. Sounds funnier than it ends up being due to a script that's repetitive and wildly all over the place. There are some funny moments but most of those come in disjointed segments of the movie that seem like they'd work better as sketches than pieces of a film.
It's not Hell, but it's not all that good either.
It's not Hell, but it's not all that good either.
Trailer Park Boys, Don't Legalize It: 73 Out Of 100 Stars
The boys are back, and they're just as funny as ever. There's some plot advancement, Julian is dealing in piss, Ricky is on his way to Montreal to stop the government from legalizing pot, and Bubbles comes into an unexpected inheritance.
There are certainly points where you feel like you've seen it all before, especially when it comes to Leheigh and Randy, but that's ok. The story moves along enough so as to not interfere with the funny, and if you've enjoyed any of the other TPB stuff, you'll enjoy the fuck out of this.
There are certainly points where you feel like you've seen it all before, especially when it comes to Leheigh and Randy, but that's ok. The story moves along enough so as to not interfere with the funny, and if you've enjoyed any of the other TPB stuff, you'll enjoy the fuck out of this.
Pieces: 75 Out Of 100 Stars
From the early 80's, this half Italian, half American mess of a film tries it's best to be what it thinks a horror movie is, but misses on just about every level in the grandest way possible.
The film actually starts out fairly interestingly as we go back to 1944 and see a perverted little kid getting discovered by his mom doing a nudie jigsaw puzzle. Mom is none too pleased and proceeds to go nutso on her son, who returns the favor in spades with a big ass knife.
Fast forward 40 years and a dude is cutting women up on a College campus in Boston, the name of the University is never given, but it doesn't matter. This campus by the way, seems to have about 10 students and they all major in Tennis or Aerobics.
The movie is a gorgeous mess right from the start as half the actors are Italian and the other half American. This leads to some of the voices being dubbed, and by some magic of film making, even the ones that aren't still appear to be dubbed. I'm fairly certain the directors knowledge of American culture is fairly limited. He seems to know about karate, jazzercise, water beds and not much else.
The boyfriend, or fuck buddy, or whatever he is, of one of the victims is immediately recruited by the lead detective to assist in the case. At first the detective is just like "keep an eye on things", and that's swell I suppose, since there are only like 2 cops in the entire movie. But then he decides to send a female cop into the school on an undercover mission and assigns the student the task of making sure nothing happens to her. You might think it'd be insulting for a police officer to have a 120 pound student assigned to watch over her, but in all fairness, her real job is as a world champion tennis pro and she's just being a cop to earn some extra money. Yes. Eventually with all leads exhausted and women continuing to die, the detective sends the kid downtown to help the other detective go through paper work. Of course it takes the kid 5 minutes to figure things out by doing the first thing you'd assume the real cops would have done about 70 minutes ago when the movie started.
The script is confounding to say the least. The cops are all over the map, sometimes it's a giant case they they've got they're best people working on, but most of the time they're lamenting how they don't have any manpower, which leads to them farming out most of their work to student. This kid is an all purpose back, part detective who solves crimes, part comedic relief who cracks racist jokes, and part Lothario who women beg for sex. Yes, women in this movie beg him to have sex with them. He's quite literally the center of every aspect of the movie but he's just not very good. He's got close to no charisma and he's not a very good actor, but he is American, I'll give him that. I get the feeling that if the Director watched Charles In Charge he'd come away thinking Willie Aimes was the hunk.
There's some near incomprehensible, both in the fact that I don't know why it's in the movie, and that I do not understand what is supposed to be happening, stuff with a janitor. This dude is a big burly guy that looks sort of like a fat Merlin Olson or if you're a wrestling fan, Norman The Lunatic. He has one facial expression, and the only way to really explain it is that he looks at everyone he's in a scene with as if they've just ripped a nasty fart and he's perturbed by it. He goes from being the janitor to a suspect for no real reason at all, gets into a massive fight with all the detectives, cops, and yes, even the student, gets arrested and then let go and back to being a janitor. This entire story arc takes about 5 minutes and has no build up or follow through.
There's a fun scene involving what at first appears to be an attempted rape, then an attempted murder, but is laughed away as a simple misunderstanding between the female cop and the schools Karate Professor that couldn't be anymore racist if he were wearing a bowl hat and fake buck teeth.
The gore is good, I guess that's something. The trouble is that movie is so frighteningly stupid that you'd probably be more apt to laugh at the kills than get grossed out. At least they give you time to rest your sides, which if you're anything like me, will be sore from laughter.
The nudity is decent, and the extended aerobic scenes featuring a girl with an ass plumper than a Ballpark Frank is a highlight. Although It's hard to respect a girl who has trouble finding the bathroom, even if it is in the basement for some reason. She's also involved in one of the greatest chase scenes I've ever seen as the she at once is attempting to flee what she thinks might be a murdering intruder while slowly getting dressed, collecting her things and then turning the lights off before leaving the room. Then she somehow misses the fact that a man is standing in an elevator with her, holding a chainsaw behind his back. I'm assuming she's in school on an aerobics scholarship and not because of a high GPA.
There are some other standout sequences. The horrible editing of a girl getting chopped up, the riveting scene in which two women play tennis for what feels like 5 minutes without either one of them ever moving their feet, the nonsensical crashing of a roller skater into a giant mirror. And last but not least, the final scene, which while not making any sense at all, seems to make perfect sense considering the baffling 90 minutes of film that precedes it.
A lost masterpiece in the pantheon of bad movies, Pieces is fun as hell, if for no other reason than the fact that it just doesn't seem to have any idea how bad it is or how little sense it makes.
The film actually starts out fairly interestingly as we go back to 1944 and see a perverted little kid getting discovered by his mom doing a nudie jigsaw puzzle. Mom is none too pleased and proceeds to go nutso on her son, who returns the favor in spades with a big ass knife.
Fast forward 40 years and a dude is cutting women up on a College campus in Boston, the name of the University is never given, but it doesn't matter. This campus by the way, seems to have about 10 students and they all major in Tennis or Aerobics.
The movie is a gorgeous mess right from the start as half the actors are Italian and the other half American. This leads to some of the voices being dubbed, and by some magic of film making, even the ones that aren't still appear to be dubbed. I'm fairly certain the directors knowledge of American culture is fairly limited. He seems to know about karate, jazzercise, water beds and not much else.
The boyfriend, or fuck buddy, or whatever he is, of one of the victims is immediately recruited by the lead detective to assist in the case. At first the detective is just like "keep an eye on things", and that's swell I suppose, since there are only like 2 cops in the entire movie. But then he decides to send a female cop into the school on an undercover mission and assigns the student the task of making sure nothing happens to her. You might think it'd be insulting for a police officer to have a 120 pound student assigned to watch over her, but in all fairness, her real job is as a world champion tennis pro and she's just being a cop to earn some extra money. Yes. Eventually with all leads exhausted and women continuing to die, the detective sends the kid downtown to help the other detective go through paper work. Of course it takes the kid 5 minutes to figure things out by doing the first thing you'd assume the real cops would have done about 70 minutes ago when the movie started.
The script is confounding to say the least. The cops are all over the map, sometimes it's a giant case they they've got they're best people working on, but most of the time they're lamenting how they don't have any manpower, which leads to them farming out most of their work to student. This kid is an all purpose back, part detective who solves crimes, part comedic relief who cracks racist jokes, and part Lothario who women beg for sex. Yes, women in this movie beg him to have sex with them. He's quite literally the center of every aspect of the movie but he's just not very good. He's got close to no charisma and he's not a very good actor, but he is American, I'll give him that. I get the feeling that if the Director watched Charles In Charge he'd come away thinking Willie Aimes was the hunk.
There's some near incomprehensible, both in the fact that I don't know why it's in the movie, and that I do not understand what is supposed to be happening, stuff with a janitor. This dude is a big burly guy that looks sort of like a fat Merlin Olson or if you're a wrestling fan, Norman The Lunatic. He has one facial expression, and the only way to really explain it is that he looks at everyone he's in a scene with as if they've just ripped a nasty fart and he's perturbed by it. He goes from being the janitor to a suspect for no real reason at all, gets into a massive fight with all the detectives, cops, and yes, even the student, gets arrested and then let go and back to being a janitor. This entire story arc takes about 5 minutes and has no build up or follow through.
There's a fun scene involving what at first appears to be an attempted rape, then an attempted murder, but is laughed away as a simple misunderstanding between the female cop and the schools Karate Professor that couldn't be anymore racist if he were wearing a bowl hat and fake buck teeth.
The gore is good, I guess that's something. The trouble is that movie is so frighteningly stupid that you'd probably be more apt to laugh at the kills than get grossed out. At least they give you time to rest your sides, which if you're anything like me, will be sore from laughter.
The nudity is decent, and the extended aerobic scenes featuring a girl with an ass plumper than a Ballpark Frank is a highlight. Although It's hard to respect a girl who has trouble finding the bathroom, even if it is in the basement for some reason. She's also involved in one of the greatest chase scenes I've ever seen as the she at once is attempting to flee what she thinks might be a murdering intruder while slowly getting dressed, collecting her things and then turning the lights off before leaving the room. Then she somehow misses the fact that a man is standing in an elevator with her, holding a chainsaw behind his back. I'm assuming she's in school on an aerobics scholarship and not because of a high GPA.
There are some other standout sequences. The horrible editing of a girl getting chopped up, the riveting scene in which two women play tennis for what feels like 5 minutes without either one of them ever moving their feet, the nonsensical crashing of a roller skater into a giant mirror. And last but not least, the final scene, which while not making any sense at all, seems to make perfect sense considering the baffling 90 minutes of film that precedes it.
A lost masterpiece in the pantheon of bad movies, Pieces is fun as hell, if for no other reason than the fact that it just doesn't seem to have any idea how bad it is or how little sense it makes.
Apocalypse Kiss: 33 Out Of 100 Stars
Prologue: I'm watching this movie at the behest of my best friend, who was involved in the production. The only other movie that he's ever asked me to watch was an experience so jarring, so life altering, so horrid, that I still have flashbacks of terror when I think about it. It was the single shittiest thing I've ever watched. Even things I've downloaded from sites that had names like druggedandforced.ru had more artistic merit. This DVD was given to me over 4 months ago, and it's sat on my end table the entire time. Every time I passed by it I would get a chill down my spine. But alas, the time has come. I can't go my entire life making excuses as to why I've yet to watch it, though I've thought about just killing myself to get out of it. You may take that as a joke, but you haven't seen the things I've seen.
But for real, if I've learned anything in the past few years it's that I can get through the shittiest of shittiest movies and come out a better person, not the broken soul my previous excursion into his recommended film left me. So on I trudge, popping in the DVD that has been sold to me on the merits of a Lloyd Kaufman appearance. For those unfamiliar, Lloyd Kaufman runs Troma films. How the producer of a company whose apex came almost 30 years ago, appearing as an actor, is supposed to sell me on a film is beyond me, but I'm game. So here we go.
It's not awful. It's not good either, but it's not awful. It's so very very very muddled in excess story and unnecessary visuals but the script has more than a few bright spots.
Set in the future where the world is about to end, not that that has any impact on the story or really matters in any way. There are three main parts to story, a serial killer, a couple of lesbian killers, and a cop haunted by his dead wife, chasing them both.
The tone of the film is wildly all over the place. The serial killer is played very well, but it's the sort of goofy, fast talking character that while amusing, has almost no depth.
The lesbians, well I just don't know what the point of them are. Neither of the actresses are very good at all. One plays a mute, then suddenly she's Russian, then suddenly she's not, and it's never really explained at all what the fuck is happening. She's supposed to have a lot of angst I think, but who the fuck knows. Their characters are all over the map. They murder, they engage in horse play in a montage that looks more at home in a silly Cinemax movie out of 1996, they have deep philosophical discussions about love and loss, none of it very engaging or good. The one chick does get her tits out a fair bit but it's not erotic at all.
The there's the cop, who maybe in the hands of a better actor would have come across better, the story with his wife is actually interesting, and the tete a tete between he and the serial killer has substance on a surface level but it just gets lost in the mess of this story that has about 10 too many layers.
I guess my main problem with the movie is that there's no need for any of the futuristic stuff, all it serves to do is distract from the main plot, and given the obviously low budget the movie had, I couldn't but feel like whatever money they did have could have been spent elsewhere.
The acting ranges from bad to mostly competent to a few good performances.
The script has glimmers of solid comedy and drama, but it gets insanely verbose at times. There's a ton of dialog about the futuristic setting that just feels like script masturbation and never really explains where, what and why is going on in the world. They do mention that we're in The East End about 100 times though. But as I said, none of that shit matters to the story so it doesn't really matter. Then the final showdown between the cop and the serial killer is just filled with so much talking and an elongated attempt to build drama that it reaches it's apex and then swiftly goes downhill as you're begging for someone to shoot someone else so the talking will stop.
The budget is clearly very low, almost every outdoor scene takes place in the same area, all the indoor scenes use a lot of smoke and mirrors but it doesn't make it look any less claustrophobic.
Apocalypse Kiss has its positives, but a wild lack of direction and focus only does a disservice to the stuff that does work.
But for real, if I've learned anything in the past few years it's that I can get through the shittiest of shittiest movies and come out a better person, not the broken soul my previous excursion into his recommended film left me. So on I trudge, popping in the DVD that has been sold to me on the merits of a Lloyd Kaufman appearance. For those unfamiliar, Lloyd Kaufman runs Troma films. How the producer of a company whose apex came almost 30 years ago, appearing as an actor, is supposed to sell me on a film is beyond me, but I'm game. So here we go.
It's not awful. It's not good either, but it's not awful. It's so very very very muddled in excess story and unnecessary visuals but the script has more than a few bright spots.
Set in the future where the world is about to end, not that that has any impact on the story or really matters in any way. There are three main parts to story, a serial killer, a couple of lesbian killers, and a cop haunted by his dead wife, chasing them both.
The tone of the film is wildly all over the place. The serial killer is played very well, but it's the sort of goofy, fast talking character that while amusing, has almost no depth.
The lesbians, well I just don't know what the point of them are. Neither of the actresses are very good at all. One plays a mute, then suddenly she's Russian, then suddenly she's not, and it's never really explained at all what the fuck is happening. She's supposed to have a lot of angst I think, but who the fuck knows. Their characters are all over the map. They murder, they engage in horse play in a montage that looks more at home in a silly Cinemax movie out of 1996, they have deep philosophical discussions about love and loss, none of it very engaging or good. The one chick does get her tits out a fair bit but it's not erotic at all.
The there's the cop, who maybe in the hands of a better actor would have come across better, the story with his wife is actually interesting, and the tete a tete between he and the serial killer has substance on a surface level but it just gets lost in the mess of this story that has about 10 too many layers.
I guess my main problem with the movie is that there's no need for any of the futuristic stuff, all it serves to do is distract from the main plot, and given the obviously low budget the movie had, I couldn't but feel like whatever money they did have could have been spent elsewhere.
The acting ranges from bad to mostly competent to a few good performances.
The script has glimmers of solid comedy and drama, but it gets insanely verbose at times. There's a ton of dialog about the futuristic setting that just feels like script masturbation and never really explains where, what and why is going on in the world. They do mention that we're in The East End about 100 times though. But as I said, none of that shit matters to the story so it doesn't really matter. Then the final showdown between the cop and the serial killer is just filled with so much talking and an elongated attempt to build drama that it reaches it's apex and then swiftly goes downhill as you're begging for someone to shoot someone else so the talking will stop.
The budget is clearly very low, almost every outdoor scene takes place in the same area, all the indoor scenes use a lot of smoke and mirrors but it doesn't make it look any less claustrophobic.
Apocalypse Kiss has its positives, but a wild lack of direction and focus only does a disservice to the stuff that does work.
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
Ghost Of Goodnight Lane: 73 Out Of 100 Stars
Billy Zane, Lacy Chabert, Danielle Harris & Richard Tyson lead an All-Star cast. Ok, AA All-Stars, but still.
Story of an Indy movie studio whose offices are in the same house in which something horrific may have occurred years earlier. They've sold the building and it's scheduled for demolition in a few days but first they have to finish the editing and reshoots on their most recent film. Will whatever is haunting the building let them finish? Will lots of shit move for unexplained reasons? Will doors slam shut without warning? Will Richard Tyson die too fucking quickly? Will girls take showers for no good reason other than to show some boobies? YES to all these things. Sorry to spoil anything for you.
The tension is good, the effects are solid and Billy Zane is actually awesome as the head of the studio, delivering mostly comedic lines with aplomb. No matter how much weird shit happens, he just wants to get his movie finished. That is until he can't deny something really weird is going on. By the time they agree they all need to get out of there, Zane even stops to joyously point out the black guy, it may be too late.
So after pissing me off by killing poor Richard Tyson off in the first five minutes, an old lady shows up at the studio and sort of alludes to the past horrors that have happened, but mostly just talks in riddles and shit. It takes her a good hour of film time and a couple of deaths to reveal that "there are things you need to know", well shit lady, don't be in any rush.
Besides Zane, the blonde hottie who gets her tits out, and maybe the black dude, nobody else in the cast really stands out. Chabert, who is my 2nd favorite flavor of Chabert, right behind orange, looks good but doesn't add much. Danielle Harris is really more of a bit player till the end. The script does become bogged down in the 3rd act. The whole story of what happened in the house previously is treated like a fucking film unto itself when it need not be. The deal with how do they get out or should they even try and get out, and an apparent lack of doors, becomes a frustrating circle of bad writing that seems to serve as filler to stretch the movies run time, a genre staple, but annoying nun the less. The saving grace is that the kills are good and fun and Zanes comedic chops, I can't even believe I'm typing that, but yes, Zanes comedic chops are enough to alleviate the slow stretches.
Funny, great gore and solid kills. High tension, hot chicks and boobies, and a performance from Billy Zane that's amazingly awesome are enough to counter a bit of a jumbled script. Ghost Of Goodnight Lane is just a fun fucking pot of horror stew.
Story of an Indy movie studio whose offices are in the same house in which something horrific may have occurred years earlier. They've sold the building and it's scheduled for demolition in a few days but first they have to finish the editing and reshoots on their most recent film. Will whatever is haunting the building let them finish? Will lots of shit move for unexplained reasons? Will doors slam shut without warning? Will Richard Tyson die too fucking quickly? Will girls take showers for no good reason other than to show some boobies? YES to all these things. Sorry to spoil anything for you.
The tension is good, the effects are solid and Billy Zane is actually awesome as the head of the studio, delivering mostly comedic lines with aplomb. No matter how much weird shit happens, he just wants to get his movie finished. That is until he can't deny something really weird is going on. By the time they agree they all need to get out of there, Zane even stops to joyously point out the black guy, it may be too late.
So after pissing me off by killing poor Richard Tyson off in the first five minutes, an old lady shows up at the studio and sort of alludes to the past horrors that have happened, but mostly just talks in riddles and shit. It takes her a good hour of film time and a couple of deaths to reveal that "there are things you need to know", well shit lady, don't be in any rush.
Besides Zane, the blonde hottie who gets her tits out, and maybe the black dude, nobody else in the cast really stands out. Chabert, who is my 2nd favorite flavor of Chabert, right behind orange, looks good but doesn't add much. Danielle Harris is really more of a bit player till the end. The script does become bogged down in the 3rd act. The whole story of what happened in the house previously is treated like a fucking film unto itself when it need not be. The deal with how do they get out or should they even try and get out, and an apparent lack of doors, becomes a frustrating circle of bad writing that seems to serve as filler to stretch the movies run time, a genre staple, but annoying nun the less. The saving grace is that the kills are good and fun and Zanes comedic chops, I can't even believe I'm typing that, but yes, Zanes comedic chops are enough to alleviate the slow stretches.
Funny, great gore and solid kills. High tension, hot chicks and boobies, and a performance from Billy Zane that's amazingly awesome are enough to counter a bit of a jumbled script. Ghost Of Goodnight Lane is just a fun fucking pot of horror stew.
13 Eerie: 63 Out Of 100 Stars
Canadian horror film that has a decently fresh premise and despite it's many flaws, turns out to be pretty enjoyable, even if a lot of that enjoyment comes directly because of the flaws. You know it's a Canadian movie when two of the first five credits go to Brendans.
A group of young forensic science students are on a training course on a remote island that used to house a prison. Rumor has it that a lot of the death row inmates were subjected to insane experiments and devious torture. I think you can see where this is going.
So the 6 students, A professor who does everything by the book and will brook no guff, and a local jack of all trades there to help set things up all make their way to the remote camp. Nick Moran is awesome as the local, who right away senses that shit isn't right, and while he helps carry the early part of the movie it does come at the expense of just about any character development for anyone else in the film. I mean, there's barely even cursory cliche dialog between the students.
So the prof has set up three different crime scenes around the island, using actual corpses with the help of a local lawman, and the students split up into three teams of two and head out to meet their doom.
The film looks good for the most part, and the acting, save for a few wooden performances from the students, is solid enough. The pacing is very well done and at just over 80 minutes it never feels stretched out. The thing that makes 13 Eerie really stand out though is that the baddies are really awesome. The mutant humans look and act legit terrifying, and the gore is top notch. The kills are good, but even the bad ones are fun. Such as when a grown woman, running for her life, cannot avoid getting stuck in a thorn bush, unable to move when a cannibal corpse comes to eat her. The monster then takes it's time eating select pieces of the this dumb broad while she continues to be perilously trapped by twigs and screams not so much as if she's being eaten alive but more like she just saw a mouse.
The bad? Well there's an infuriating hum that some might call a soundtrack, that blares distortingly in moments of tension and drowns out a lot of the dialog. Both unforgivable and nerve wracking.. Then there's the complete lack of character development. The only one in the group you end up having any rooting interest in is the hot girl, for no other reason really other than she's hot. The last half hour just isn't as much fun as it could have been if I had given much of a fuck who lived and died, but cest la vie.
A little short on story, but high on atmosphere, with enough blood and guts to keep things moving along, 13 Eerie is a decent romp with the undead.
A group of young forensic science students are on a training course on a remote island that used to house a prison. Rumor has it that a lot of the death row inmates were subjected to insane experiments and devious torture. I think you can see where this is going.
So the 6 students, A professor who does everything by the book and will brook no guff, and a local jack of all trades there to help set things up all make their way to the remote camp. Nick Moran is awesome as the local, who right away senses that shit isn't right, and while he helps carry the early part of the movie it does come at the expense of just about any character development for anyone else in the film. I mean, there's barely even cursory cliche dialog between the students.
So the prof has set up three different crime scenes around the island, using actual corpses with the help of a local lawman, and the students split up into three teams of two and head out to meet their doom.
The film looks good for the most part, and the acting, save for a few wooden performances from the students, is solid enough. The pacing is very well done and at just over 80 minutes it never feels stretched out. The thing that makes 13 Eerie really stand out though is that the baddies are really awesome. The mutant humans look and act legit terrifying, and the gore is top notch. The kills are good, but even the bad ones are fun. Such as when a grown woman, running for her life, cannot avoid getting stuck in a thorn bush, unable to move when a cannibal corpse comes to eat her. The monster then takes it's time eating select pieces of the this dumb broad while she continues to be perilously trapped by twigs and screams not so much as if she's being eaten alive but more like she just saw a mouse.
The bad? Well there's an infuriating hum that some might call a soundtrack, that blares distortingly in moments of tension and drowns out a lot of the dialog. Both unforgivable and nerve wracking.. Then there's the complete lack of character development. The only one in the group you end up having any rooting interest in is the hot girl, for no other reason really other than she's hot. The last half hour just isn't as much fun as it could have been if I had given much of a fuck who lived and died, but cest la vie.
A little short on story, but high on atmosphere, with enough blood and guts to keep things moving along, 13 Eerie is a decent romp with the undead.
Lovelace: 57 Out Of 100 Stars
Lovelace is a tale of two movies, almost literally. After the first 45 minutes play out we're then taken back to the beginning and taken through the same period of time but from a different perspective. It's an interesting ploy that got my attention and then kept it with a decent second act thanks to the performances, though the script never feels like it gets much below the surface even though the ending tries to get really heavy.
The performances by Seyfried as the titular character and Sarsgaard as her husband Chuck Traynor, are good enough, although I was underwhelmed by the portrayal of the typical bad guy husband. Nice and charming at first, then mean, controlling and violent. Even if that's exactly how he really was, it never feels like the movie puts much effort at all into portraying the character the same as it's been portrayed in a million other films. Then at the end it mentions that Traynor would go on to marry Marilyn Chambers, which makes me question much of what I just saw as far as him becoming an out of control pariah in the porn world. Something just isn't adding up. I felt left with more questions than answers.
The supporting cast is pretty strong and although it's not really sexy per se, there is a decent amount of skin, although I was baffled by how much Seyfrieds look was dulled down, but whatevs.
Nothing special, but good enough to keep my attention. Lovelace plays more like an after school special, if after school specials played in porno theaters. Something about that sounds really wrong.
Lovelace? Eh, Likelace.
The performances by Seyfried as the titular character and Sarsgaard as her husband Chuck Traynor, are good enough, although I was underwhelmed by the portrayal of the typical bad guy husband. Nice and charming at first, then mean, controlling and violent. Even if that's exactly how he really was, it never feels like the movie puts much effort at all into portraying the character the same as it's been portrayed in a million other films. Then at the end it mentions that Traynor would go on to marry Marilyn Chambers, which makes me question much of what I just saw as far as him becoming an out of control pariah in the porn world. Something just isn't adding up. I felt left with more questions than answers.
The supporting cast is pretty strong and although it's not really sexy per se, there is a decent amount of skin, although I was baffled by how much Seyfrieds look was dulled down, but whatevs.
Nothing special, but good enough to keep my attention. Lovelace plays more like an after school special, if after school specials played in porno theaters. Something about that sounds really wrong.
Lovelace? Eh, Likelace.
Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes: 77 Out Of 100 Stars
Where the original dealt with things on a more one on one basis and was led by the strong performances of Franco & Serkis, Dawn has a much wider, but just as fascinating scope.
Serkis is maybe even better this time in having to deal with the angst of both human encroachment and the impending turncoat Koba. The humans don't bring nearly as much to the table this time around although the script tries really hard to give Jason Clarke and Kerri Russell some meat, they just don't resonate the way Franco did in the original. Gary Oldman gives a strong but small performance as the leader of the humans, completely perplexed by the idea of doing anything but taking out the apes. But the heart of the story is Caesar and his conflicted views on humans and the coming war, and Serkis handles the role with an Oscar caliber performance.
No two ways about it, this monkey shines.
Serkis is maybe even better this time in having to deal with the angst of both human encroachment and the impending turncoat Koba. The humans don't bring nearly as much to the table this time around although the script tries really hard to give Jason Clarke and Kerri Russell some meat, they just don't resonate the way Franco did in the original. Gary Oldman gives a strong but small performance as the leader of the humans, completely perplexed by the idea of doing anything but taking out the apes. But the heart of the story is Caesar and his conflicted views on humans and the coming war, and Serkis handles the role with an Oscar caliber performance.
No two ways about it, this monkey shines.
Monday, July 28, 2014
Bleading Lady: 5 Out Of 100 Stars
Two points for each time a hot chick gets naked, and three points for the approximate number of times I laughed. Even that feels generous.
If you made a how to video on how not to make a movie, it would probably look something like this. I simply don't have the energy to explain the story or go over every little thing in detail. A fair amount of dialog is drowned out by music playing or the sound of a van running. The acting is more horrific than the kills. The script and directing are atrocious and it just fucking goes on and on and on and on. I never thought I'd be so drained from a movies sheer dullness to be completely unflustered by watching a penis get cut off, but here we are.
Ryan Nicholson is apparently an accomplished effects guy, but for the love of all that is holy, somebody close to him needs to sit him down and in the nicest way possible explain that none of the qualities needed to make an interesting movie are present in his DNA.
Someday I'm going to sit down and rewatch Gutterballs to try and see if maybe I was just super duper stoned when I watched it. There really can't be any other explanation.
If you made a how to video on how not to make a movie, it would probably look something like this. I simply don't have the energy to explain the story or go over every little thing in detail. A fair amount of dialog is drowned out by music playing or the sound of a van running. The acting is more horrific than the kills. The script and directing are atrocious and it just fucking goes on and on and on and on. I never thought I'd be so drained from a movies sheer dullness to be completely unflustered by watching a penis get cut off, but here we are.
Ryan Nicholson is apparently an accomplished effects guy, but for the love of all that is holy, somebody close to him needs to sit him down and in the nicest way possible explain that none of the qualities needed to make an interesting movie are present in his DNA.
Someday I'm going to sit down and rewatch Gutterballs to try and see if maybe I was just super duper stoned when I watched it. There really can't be any other explanation.
Thursday, July 24, 2014
The Worlds End: 72 Out Of 100 Stars
Like Shaun Of The Dead and Hot Fuzz before, Simon Peggs The Worlds End is a fun romp with some serious undertones that makes solid use of physical comedy and word play. If you liked those movies I suspect you'll like this one, and you should like them, because they're all good.
20 years after a group of graduates fell short of their pub crawl, the leader is trying to get the gang back to together to finish the job. The problem is, he's the only one still living in the past. Of course he convinces them to join him, and what ensues is a damn fun romp that switches gears very quickly and sends the movie someplace I had no idea it was going. The twist allows for a series of fun ass action sequences that harken back to a bygone era of physical comedy, which it seems the villains are designed specifically to create, and that's cool with me.
Mix a buddy comedy with cyborgs and throw in some stooges, I'm good with that. The Worlds End is our gain.
20 years after a group of graduates fell short of their pub crawl, the leader is trying to get the gang back to together to finish the job. The problem is, he's the only one still living in the past. Of course he convinces them to join him, and what ensues is a damn fun romp that switches gears very quickly and sends the movie someplace I had no idea it was going. The twist allows for a series of fun ass action sequences that harken back to a bygone era of physical comedy, which it seems the villains are designed specifically to create, and that's cool with me.
Mix a buddy comedy with cyborgs and throw in some stooges, I'm good with that. The Worlds End is our gain.
Famine: 30 Out Of 100 Stars
Another Ryan Nicholson movie, and easily the most perplexing of his 4 movies I've seen so far. I remarked in my review of Hanger that I had no idea what the film was trying to accomplish, well Famine raises my sheer perplexedness up to about 1000.
Set in Sloppy Secondary High, Famine runs the gamut from amusing, bizarre, nonsensical, sexy, non nonsensical, funny, nonsensical, and nonsensical. On the plus side, there's no unnecessary build to the imbecility. Within 30 seconds you know pretty much what you're in for as you're greeted with hot chicks, nice boobs, atrocious acting and dreadful writing.
I think, and this is purely a guess, but I think that there's an attempt at satire here. The first half of the movie is decently funny either way, just based on sheer befuddlement. The lead actress, whatever the hell her motivation is, seems like she's doing a good job of pulling it off, the problem is that I have no idea what it is. She also has exquisite boobies, which never hurts. To be fair, almost all of the women in the cast are good, I just have no idea what it is they're doing. I suppose the men might be good too, if they're impetus is to be the human version of Beavis, and for all I can tell it might be.
The story is about a group of kids who were involved in hurting a teacher 5 years ago during the schools famine, which is a 24 hour hunger strike to raise awareness and earn extra credits. Don't look at me that way, that's the story. So after 5 years of no famine, the school decides to have another one and yadda yadda yadda, horror movie tropes, etc.
There's the usual Ryan Nicholson schtick at play here, although it's turned down a bit in favor of just letting a dumb script be the joke. The problem is that in much the same way one fart is funny, but 100 farts is just a big smelly mess, the movie never evolves. What's humorous in the first few minutes becomes zestless by the halfway point, and then to make matters worse the last 40 minutes devolve into the same boring, run of the mill, rather soulless, chase and slash cliche that they've spent the first 40 minutes mocking.
The kills are more standard than in any of Nicholsons previous films, though his penchant for facial scarring remains. And the over the top gross out moments are kept to a minimum, nary a vaginal close up to be found. The girls are hot, but there's never the level of nudity I was hoping for if I'm being honest. There are the odd odd scenes, such as uncontrolled semen splatter and a man trying to have sex with a swiss roll and some of the comedy in the early part of the film works pretty well. The editing and direction are competent for the most part, but there are moments where it gets really bad.
The most mainstream of Nicholsons work so far, there are glimpses of fun and glimmers of hope in Famine, but for whatever reason, even when he stumbles upon stuff that works, he can't stay focused and the entire thing just turns into a discombobulated and rather boring mess.
Set in Sloppy Secondary High, Famine runs the gamut from amusing, bizarre, nonsensical, sexy, non nonsensical, funny, nonsensical, and nonsensical. On the plus side, there's no unnecessary build to the imbecility. Within 30 seconds you know pretty much what you're in for as you're greeted with hot chicks, nice boobs, atrocious acting and dreadful writing.
I think, and this is purely a guess, but I think that there's an attempt at satire here. The first half of the movie is decently funny either way, just based on sheer befuddlement. The lead actress, whatever the hell her motivation is, seems like she's doing a good job of pulling it off, the problem is that I have no idea what it is. She also has exquisite boobies, which never hurts. To be fair, almost all of the women in the cast are good, I just have no idea what it is they're doing. I suppose the men might be good too, if they're impetus is to be the human version of Beavis, and for all I can tell it might be.
The story is about a group of kids who were involved in hurting a teacher 5 years ago during the schools famine, which is a 24 hour hunger strike to raise awareness and earn extra credits. Don't look at me that way, that's the story. So after 5 years of no famine, the school decides to have another one and yadda yadda yadda, horror movie tropes, etc.
There's the usual Ryan Nicholson schtick at play here, although it's turned down a bit in favor of just letting a dumb script be the joke. The problem is that in much the same way one fart is funny, but 100 farts is just a big smelly mess, the movie never evolves. What's humorous in the first few minutes becomes zestless by the halfway point, and then to make matters worse the last 40 minutes devolve into the same boring, run of the mill, rather soulless, chase and slash cliche that they've spent the first 40 minutes mocking.
The kills are more standard than in any of Nicholsons previous films, though his penchant for facial scarring remains. And the over the top gross out moments are kept to a minimum, nary a vaginal close up to be found. The girls are hot, but there's never the level of nudity I was hoping for if I'm being honest. There are the odd odd scenes, such as uncontrolled semen splatter and a man trying to have sex with a swiss roll and some of the comedy in the early part of the film works pretty well. The editing and direction are competent for the most part, but there are moments where it gets really bad.
The most mainstream of Nicholsons work so far, there are glimpses of fun and glimmers of hope in Famine, but for whatever reason, even when he stumbles upon stuff that works, he can't stay focused and the entire thing just turns into a discombobulated and rather boring mess.
Hanger: 15 Out Of 100 Stars
From the same guy who made the infinitely superior Gutterballs and the equally awful Live Feed, comes Hanger. Because wasn't the world clamoring for the story of a hookers botched abortion and the resulting murderous spawn.
Unfortunately, Hanger has all the same stupidity of Gutterballs and absolutely none of the charm or fun. The story is silly beyond belief, but that doesn't stop the script from explaining every corny detail in long, drawn out scenes of eye rolling dialog.
As the movie opens we've got a bunch of hookers, one of whom is pregnant, living in a run down hotel. Their pimp doesn't like the fact that the pregnant girl is costing him money so he decides to take care of things himself. In true Ryan Nicholoson fashion this is shown in very gory detail. The problem is that it's not in any way funny, nor is it making a statement. I could deal with a scene like this if there was something behind it that made it worth while, or even made it seem like the director was trying to say something worthwhile, but he's not, he just wants to show that he can do a special effects abortion.
Now then, the hooker dies and the baby gets thrown in the trash, only to be picked up a homeless mental. Fast forward 18 years and the mental homeless dude has raised the disfigured baby, apparently living in a tent in an ally all this time. Upon his 18th birthday the old guy passes the kid off to a former john of the hooker who believes he's the kids father. The father does a lot of talking about the situation, as if we're in the middle of a grand mystery and can't figure out this less than basic story on our own.
The dad apparently has connections at a recycling plant and gets the kid a job working with other mentals, misfits and what not. But his grander scheme is to use the kid to get to and kill the pimp, because every pimp who works out of a $5 motel in what looks like Fort Lee, NJ takes a master plan, spanning 18 years, to kill. Now, we saw the dad earlier in the film, and not only has he not appeared to age in 18 years, but he still drives the same truck. God, this is so awful. Not only is it awful, but it's fucking boring. There are some gory and silly kills, but not silly fun, just silly stupid.
The kid is put up with one of the other dudes who works at the plant, who of course is also a goofy, disfigured sort who just happens to have a porno featuring the kids dead mom. He also thinks hot dogs are what you get when you microwave poodles. Real funny shit here.
So the dad explains the master plan to the kid, how the best way to get to the pimp is to draw him out by killing his whores. Again, this is akin to sending Seal Team 6 in to rob a candy bar from a Bodega. Anyway, as soon as the dad explains his plan, he gets in his truck and wouldn't you know it, one of the pimps main hookers jumps in and starts talking about how she wants to help kill the pimp because, and I quote "He fucks every single one of those whores". It's like my dad always said, if you can't trust your pimp to be monogamous, who the hell can you trust? The scene doesn't really go anywhere other than to give us a good five minutes of the kind of top shelf acting you can only find in movies about botched abortions and the killer children of said botched abortions.
Next we go into the comedy portion of the movie as the freaks are working at the recycling plant, which appears to consist of one room full of dumpsters with various things in them. The budget for this movie is listed at $250,000, $200 of which I'm sure went into building this set. This scene is full of non sequitur jokes involved crabs, making tea out of used tampons, and a diaper fight, of course using loaded diapers. This might have actually been funny if this was what the entire movie was about, but as it is it just feels like the scene itself is one long non sequitur. It's interspersed with two other scenes, one featuring the dad and the pimp having a showdown that involves a hooker fingering what she admits is her unwashed vagina and rubbing the remnants all over dads face, and the other a scene involving the improbably hot boss of the recycling plant deciding to get on her desk and masturbate for no particular reason. Both scenes make liberal use of a squishing sound effect. Well, if you've got to have a calling card as a director, I guess the sounds of vagina squish is as good as any.
OK, now things get rather fascinating, on some disturbing level. The dad is tied up after having his face torched by the pimp. Then the hooker with the dirty cooch proceeds to rubs herself all over his torched up face and fart on him. At the same time, one of the mentals from the recycling plant drugs the other two guys, takes an entire bottle of Viagra and rapes them. But this is no simple rape, oh no. After doing the first guy, who decides to rape an open wound in the stomach of the partially aborted kid. This is...graphic. This is...I'm at a loss for words as to the point of this, the comedic intentions of this, the entire point of any of this. But I'd be lying if I didn't admit to laughing my ass off just now. Oh, and all of this is interspersed with the hot boss still doing a rather graphic softcore masturbation scene with a pen, that her father the foreman will later sniff.
From there it's more over the top shit, including a tampon being removed from the passed out boss and revenge for the rape by choking the rapist with poop. There's also some outstanding continuity as the dad, torched and beaten, wrapped in plastic and left for dead, wakes up and cuts his way out, then finds the hooker who farted all over him, still in the process of douching, which she said she was going to do as she left the room he was being tortured in. Then there's Russell, the dude Hanger lives with, an hour into the film saying "you can crash with me tonight", long after it's been established that they live together. The pimp telling the female boss "maybe I'll come back later and bang you again", despite the fact that he hasn't banged her once. Or the pimp throwing in a line at the end of the film about having just served 18 years in jail, which leaves the viewer to wonder exactly when in the past day he's collected all these hookers to work for him. I'd like to be amazed at a movie that cares this little about it's own story, but it's too god damn ridiculous to even start to think it ever cares about the story to begin with. So yeah.
OK, so what else? Well the movie is filled with sound effects. Like, there's constant train whistles and sounds of trucks and police cars, to give the illusion that everything is taking place somewhere other than an abandoned parking lot. It's incredibly distracting, but not nearly as distracting the music that plays during much of the dialog. It's like how in real movies, fight scenes are often augmented by a blistering soundtrack to heighten the scene. Well here the wondrous banter between characters is backed up by indiscernible and generic heavy rock. Unfortunately we can still hear the words.
This is a movie that you cross your fingers and pray it was meant to be this dumb, because otherwise the world just feels like a sadder place to live. The thing is, I've seen this guy make a good movie. Granted, the actors were roughly 1000 times better, and there was an actual set, but still. Everything about it was so insanely better than this piece of shit.
I'd suggest that this DVD is better served used as a coaster, but that belittles the work that goes into making coasters. In a movie filled with rape, abortions, open wounds, pooping, and tampon tea, the most offensive thing about it is the craftsmanship.
Unfortunately, Hanger has all the same stupidity of Gutterballs and absolutely none of the charm or fun. The story is silly beyond belief, but that doesn't stop the script from explaining every corny detail in long, drawn out scenes of eye rolling dialog.
As the movie opens we've got a bunch of hookers, one of whom is pregnant, living in a run down hotel. Their pimp doesn't like the fact that the pregnant girl is costing him money so he decides to take care of things himself. In true Ryan Nicholoson fashion this is shown in very gory detail. The problem is that it's not in any way funny, nor is it making a statement. I could deal with a scene like this if there was something behind it that made it worth while, or even made it seem like the director was trying to say something worthwhile, but he's not, he just wants to show that he can do a special effects abortion.
Now then, the hooker dies and the baby gets thrown in the trash, only to be picked up a homeless mental. Fast forward 18 years and the mental homeless dude has raised the disfigured baby, apparently living in a tent in an ally all this time. Upon his 18th birthday the old guy passes the kid off to a former john of the hooker who believes he's the kids father. The father does a lot of talking about the situation, as if we're in the middle of a grand mystery and can't figure out this less than basic story on our own.
The dad apparently has connections at a recycling plant and gets the kid a job working with other mentals, misfits and what not. But his grander scheme is to use the kid to get to and kill the pimp, because every pimp who works out of a $5 motel in what looks like Fort Lee, NJ takes a master plan, spanning 18 years, to kill. Now, we saw the dad earlier in the film, and not only has he not appeared to age in 18 years, but he still drives the same truck. God, this is so awful. Not only is it awful, but it's fucking boring. There are some gory and silly kills, but not silly fun, just silly stupid.
The kid is put up with one of the other dudes who works at the plant, who of course is also a goofy, disfigured sort who just happens to have a porno featuring the kids dead mom. He also thinks hot dogs are what you get when you microwave poodles. Real funny shit here.
So the dad explains the master plan to the kid, how the best way to get to the pimp is to draw him out by killing his whores. Again, this is akin to sending Seal Team 6 in to rob a candy bar from a Bodega. Anyway, as soon as the dad explains his plan, he gets in his truck and wouldn't you know it, one of the pimps main hookers jumps in and starts talking about how she wants to help kill the pimp because, and I quote "He fucks every single one of those whores". It's like my dad always said, if you can't trust your pimp to be monogamous, who the hell can you trust? The scene doesn't really go anywhere other than to give us a good five minutes of the kind of top shelf acting you can only find in movies about botched abortions and the killer children of said botched abortions.
Next we go into the comedy portion of the movie as the freaks are working at the recycling plant, which appears to consist of one room full of dumpsters with various things in them. The budget for this movie is listed at $250,000, $200 of which I'm sure went into building this set. This scene is full of non sequitur jokes involved crabs, making tea out of used tampons, and a diaper fight, of course using loaded diapers. This might have actually been funny if this was what the entire movie was about, but as it is it just feels like the scene itself is one long non sequitur. It's interspersed with two other scenes, one featuring the dad and the pimp having a showdown that involves a hooker fingering what she admits is her unwashed vagina and rubbing the remnants all over dads face, and the other a scene involving the improbably hot boss of the recycling plant deciding to get on her desk and masturbate for no particular reason. Both scenes make liberal use of a squishing sound effect. Well, if you've got to have a calling card as a director, I guess the sounds of vagina squish is as good as any.
OK, now things get rather fascinating, on some disturbing level. The dad is tied up after having his face torched by the pimp. Then the hooker with the dirty cooch proceeds to rubs herself all over his torched up face and fart on him. At the same time, one of the mentals from the recycling plant drugs the other two guys, takes an entire bottle of Viagra and rapes them. But this is no simple rape, oh no. After doing the first guy, who decides to rape an open wound in the stomach of the partially aborted kid. This is...graphic. This is...I'm at a loss for words as to the point of this, the comedic intentions of this, the entire point of any of this. But I'd be lying if I didn't admit to laughing my ass off just now. Oh, and all of this is interspersed with the hot boss still doing a rather graphic softcore masturbation scene with a pen, that her father the foreman will later sniff.
From there it's more over the top shit, including a tampon being removed from the passed out boss and revenge for the rape by choking the rapist with poop. There's also some outstanding continuity as the dad, torched and beaten, wrapped in plastic and left for dead, wakes up and cuts his way out, then finds the hooker who farted all over him, still in the process of douching, which she said she was going to do as she left the room he was being tortured in. Then there's Russell, the dude Hanger lives with, an hour into the film saying "you can crash with me tonight", long after it's been established that they live together. The pimp telling the female boss "maybe I'll come back later and bang you again", despite the fact that he hasn't banged her once. Or the pimp throwing in a line at the end of the film about having just served 18 years in jail, which leaves the viewer to wonder exactly when in the past day he's collected all these hookers to work for him. I'd like to be amazed at a movie that cares this little about it's own story, but it's too god damn ridiculous to even start to think it ever cares about the story to begin with. So yeah.
OK, so what else? Well the movie is filled with sound effects. Like, there's constant train whistles and sounds of trucks and police cars, to give the illusion that everything is taking place somewhere other than an abandoned parking lot. It's incredibly distracting, but not nearly as distracting the music that plays during much of the dialog. It's like how in real movies, fight scenes are often augmented by a blistering soundtrack to heighten the scene. Well here the wondrous banter between characters is backed up by indiscernible and generic heavy rock. Unfortunately we can still hear the words.
This is a movie that you cross your fingers and pray it was meant to be this dumb, because otherwise the world just feels like a sadder place to live. The thing is, I've seen this guy make a good movie. Granted, the actors were roughly 1000 times better, and there was an actual set, but still. Everything about it was so insanely better than this piece of shit.
I'd suggest that this DVD is better served used as a coaster, but that belittles the work that goes into making coasters. In a movie filled with rape, abortions, open wounds, pooping, and tampon tea, the most offensive thing about it is the craftsmanship.
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