Review - The Tunnel (2011)

The Tunnel is the Mercedes of found footage flicks. Now, depending on where you currently stand on the topic of what is soon to be one of the most loathed sub-genres to grace the silver screen in the last twenty years, that could mean very little. What it is in a nutshell is a very well produced picture that straddles the line between faux documentary and yet another take on the Paranormal Activititty (yes, I said Activititty… I mean, c’mon… Katie Featherston’s um… “talents” were downright juggnormous in that movie.. and glorious…ohhhh soooo glorious….moving on) popularity that has swept movie houses and kept phenomenal box office receipts hitting Variety headlines every October. In its defense, it’s a better movie with better acting than its predecessors, and it shows it in every fame.

The Tunnel starts us off with interviews from both a cameraman and investigative journalist (two of the original party of four) that were involved in the horrifying events that the film centers around. The tunnels beneath Australia are part of a conspiracy, it is revealed and our protagonists were hell-bent to investigate their many mysteries, with, of course, the blessing of the station they worked for. Well, blessing might be overdoing it as we find out that the station itself had no clue as to their methods for entering the forbidden tunnels (unlawfully of course after a failed bribe to one of the security guards on site) and now the hunt for the truth behind the disappearance of some of the city’s homeless turns into a fight for survival for the quartet of would-be investigators.

The Tunnel might suffer from an overall lack of originality if it suffers from anything. A small group of people get caught in unfamiliar territory after being warned to stay far away and now they themselves are victims of a lurking evil with an insatiable thirst for blood… like I said… this isn’t a post World War 2 musical about gay lab apes in love (yeah.. you heard it… hella-original and free for the casual reader to run with) it’s a horror movie with a similar premise to the score of those that came before it. Again, the proof is in the pudding and the proof here is tunnel’s very atmospheric locale and the believability of its cast. To say the movie is claustrophobic is an understatement as we follow our quartet through the labyrinthine twists of the city’s tunnel system. Couple this with just the right amount, or lack thereof, of light, and the film’s environment is rife with suspense. THIS, is what separates The Tunnel from its contemporaries. We go into it knowing that two comrades are destined for the dark beyond yet we still feel the scares nonetheless.

Although we never get a very clear image of exactly what is hunting our crew (these scenes are IR but thankfully it actually adds to the tension instead of being just a green backdrop to a timer and some sleepwalking… or sleepstanding… wow… that really does make it sound a little more boring, doesn’t it? I like the idea of sleep sprinting myself… a little chariots of fire set amidst images of faceplants and sweaty pjs) we don’t feel like victims of “pull-the-rug-out from-under-us” shaky cam, either. We are treated to just enough to get our imaginations going…which… now that I think about it..is a pretty successful tactic for a horror film, isn’t it?

Like I said earlier, The Tunnel might not give much hope to detractors of the found footage genre, but to me, I’d rather have a Mercedes with some resell value than a Gremlin with an empty Mcdonald’s bag in the passenger seat and a petrified fry on the floorboard.

Review - World of the Dead: The Zombie Diaries 2

This is usually where I start by gushing about zombies and my love for them, but not this time. Have you ever pulled a joke on someone just because one was pulled on you previously in the same manner? I think we have all done this in one form or another believing we had good reason. In the case of this movie I ended up double pranked. Not only did this suck as bad as the last one, but the jag off friend that recommended it is probably laughing as he reads this right now. You know who you are and your time will come (wink).So we start off following the last film and the outbreak is only spreading as we watch a shaky cam version of a little girl's birthday party overrun by the undead. We see the return of Leanne, (now played by Alxi Regan) who was in the film crew in the first movie. She is the sole survivor of the first movie, which is ok because almost none of the characters were worth remembering. Jones is now the man entrusted with documenting the terror as he is rolling with this squad as their military photographer. There is an attempt at holding the fort which proves futile and Leanna, Jones and a few other soldiers make it out. So off we go to find a new place to call home. This takes us through different abandoned areas and woods. Then we find the enemy hide out which seems to be human bandits with booby traps a plenty. We see the return of some so called bad guys from the first film, but once again who cares as almost nothing was memorable the first time around. There are plot twists tying Leanna to past events unfortunate and such but I am not going to spoil that for you loyal ZD fans. As with most of these flicks we are racing to salvation, and in this case that comes as a boat before everything is fire bombed to kill the outbreak (yawn).The make-up and effects were better this time around and you could tell the budget was increased. I am not sure why or how the green light and budget happened for this flick. I just chalked it up to making a quick buck on this zombie craze before it is tapped out (which if you are counting was before 2011). The acting was well... the acting. Nothing amazing or genre changing but at the same time on par with what we have come to expect from these "feature a day" movies. Music was the usual ho hum crap along with the sound effects. If anything the sound was poorer due to damn shaky camera/documentary style filming.My biggest complaint was the way this was filmed. The whole shaky camera/found footage/night vision crap is almost always a terror to watch and not in the good way. The green luminous light or night vision made a lot of effects and action hard to see. Personally when I see this stuff its rookie crap. It is all to easy to cover up bad CGI/acting/effects/makeup etc, by killing the light and distorting the picture as if we are there. Listen, I am not looking to be there but more or less see a decent flick which unfortunately this is not. Now will you please excuse me, I have a bag of dog sh*t to light on fire and leave on a friend's doorstep.

Pros
Better makeup then the last movie
Makes a great prank gift for jag off friends
Cons
Shaky cam style
Night vision camera
So so acting

Posted by contributor Christopher Young

Review - George Romero's Dead Time Stories

Ahem... an open letter to George A. Romero...
"I love Night of the Living Dead. It was the first movie that ever scared me AND for that and a bevy of other reasons it will always hold a special place in my heart. Also, Mr. Romero, I loves me some Dawn of the Dead, and, well day of the dead wasn’t horrible either, but please please stop. Just stop."

I went into this anthology with high hopes but I might as well have watched one of the Twilight Zone or Outer Limits clones that inevitably come out every year. This film is absolutely no different from any of the other knockoffs. That means it isn't horrible, but not good either

It starts with a cryptic, supposed-to-be-creepy intro by George and doesn’t get much better from there. The tales are bloody but ultimately transparent. There is no time where you don't see "it" inevitably coming. It all just feels rehashed.

On the bright side there are multiple stories that do have completely different angles. Between a vampire that makes house calls, a cannibalistic tribe and a mermaid you have quite a variety to choose from here. Like I said earlier: it is not bad... it is just average. BUT if Romero puts his name on it I think it should be of better quality...OR he could just like money..no harm, no foul George.

Like alway,s watch it because it is worth at least a perusing... if just for the corny intros Romero delivers.




2 and a hlf hypos

Review - Zombie Honeymoon

Well, what can I say about this film that wasn't already said about A Tale of Two Cities...well a lot actually because A Tale of Two Cities is a classic and this movie is an overly dramatic pile of poo. Please understand that I never prejudge a movie on production value or sound or well, anything, I judge on content and this movie is bleeehhhhhhck. Spoilers may follow.

It starts with a happy young punk/hipster couple getting married and going on a romantic month long get away to the lovely....jersey shore...that’s right the jersey shore. Now I was intrigued because Snooki scares the bejesus out of me and I wanted that kind of visceral scare. Unfortunately I was sorely disappointed as no guidos were present in this zombie classic. So over tanned fake Italians aside, Denise and Danny (our newly weds) embark on their new lives. They start this like many young newlyweds do by doing it in the back yard then going surfing. Wellllll as Danny boy is taking a nap a seaweed covered zombie emerges from the water and attacks him....thought it was for a second but still no snookie....as the zombie attacks it vomits blood all over young Danny and causes Danny to go into cardiac arrest. If only this movie would have ended there. Later at the hospital our hero(?) comes miraculously back to life to the delight of his wife and my dismay.

When they get back home and Danny is different, and by different I mean eating people. This is really where the movie swerves into stupid country. Sweet, sweet baby Denise thinks this is icky and odd but still loves her man. This continues as he eats more and more people, and may I add people closer to both of them....but she looooves him so its okay.

You may think by this point this is a comedy but no, no its not. This crap fest is filled with way to many overly dramatic pauses and moments that do not add anything to it. You start to feel like he should eat her dumb ass to put her out of our collective misery. It ends the way you think it will but hope it wont.

I’m not saying to avoid this film, in fact celebrate it with a loved one and point out to them you would put them down like a rabid dog if they ever started eating people.

originally posted by contributor David Winterborne

Review - Attack the Block

So here I am just cruising around the old inter-web watching videos and listening to music. From time to time I like to read forum posts because trolls are the best flametastic entertainment you can get without paying a dime. Up until this point ATB was not on my radar because Sci Fi comes second to horror for me and the British slang/dialog can be hard to follow for the average Yankee. At a pretty popular site which will go unmentioned I took in a war of words that had spilled into nasty arguing and name calling, all over a movie called Attack the Block. It seems some other yanks had a hard time enjoying it due to the British dialog and some UK fans were pretty offended. A twat comment tossed one way and an asshole fired back. So what is the big deal with this damn movie?!?! Off I go full speed to find some trailers and legitimate press in hopes of locating what has caused this all too common virtual war.

The trailers did not do much in the way of causing drooling or an obsessive need to seek this movie out. So I decided to add it to Netflix for a viewing whenever the damn service decided to mail out the disc. This flick should have been streaming as well as 90% of the current catalog but that's another fight for another time. So we open with a mugging by a group of teenage thugs who will become the main characters in this film. Overall I found it very hard to empathize with any of these characters and I was a trouble maker as a teen. When your characters come and go so quickly it can be very hard to establish the main character much less any of the others in this gang. Who had the grand idea of waiting till the end to establish the protagonist? I get doing some things to string the viewer along to build the caring and empathy, which is the norm, and did not happen here until almost the credits. If this film had to ride on the merits of character interaction and development, it would have been a sinking ship within the first 15 minutes. Luckily we have some SFX and humor to fill the obvious character void.

Ok, so we are mugging this meek mouse of a women and a creature blasts into a car like a missile at 300 miles an hour. We might have something here. Well we might have something, but lets have the kids rob the car before fully investigating the disturbance. Huh? Um ok, lets track said creature down because he scratched the British 50 cent's face. Once we have beat this thing into submission it's time to head to the main drug dealers place and figure out what it is. This whole part kinda bugged me and did nothing more than introduce more characters you will not care about down the road, AKA king dealer and his cronies.At this point you may be thinking man this dude really hated the movie. I beg to differ. The chase scenes were entertaining along with the fight scenes. At more than one point I did feel the camaraderie that movies like Toy Soldiers so happily brought to us back in 1991. The you know we may not be soldiers but we will fight to take back what is ours. In the case of Toy Soldiers it was boarding school and ATB had well ... the block to take back.Nick Frost will always be a very funny man and without him in this film I do feel a lot of humor would have been lost. The whole king drug dealer scene and what not would have seemed stiff and forced just to add the grit to these young boys if not for Mr. Frost and his fat stoner persona. Personally I did not care for the glowing mouth apes that the creatures were portrayed as. I get Sci Fi and enjoy it but really I wish these had been something a little more akin to humans in some form. I am not sure why but I was left saying that more than one time.Overall the movie was worth watching and I did enjoy it for what it was. I wish the world did not assume that the more film festival awards/nominations adorned on the cover the better it will be upon release. Was this a success ,yes. Was it a box office killer up against movies like transformers and the like when it comes to sci fi? No.Did anyone else see this and really like/hate it?Does my review make you want to kick me in the nuts? Regardless of answering yes or no please feel free to leave a comment or death threat. I am a fan of both.

originally posted by contributor Christopher Young

Review - Hellraiser Revelations

For those of us who worked through the era of faxes and xeroxes we remember a term called image degradation. Image degradation happens when you fax a copy of a fax or copy a copy of a copy and each copy gets copied or each fax gets faxed untill the document is barely readable. Helraiser Revelations suffers from franchise degradation. the movie, which has all the trappings of what one might expect from a Hellraiser feels like a copy of a copy of a copy... the formula is there, but the original inspiration has been bastardized so many times that its barely recognizable.

Barker's initial vision showed us the depravity of the human soul and the power of obsesion. It was a sexual sadistic social commentary on the human psyche and fetishism. The threat was every bit a human one as it was a supernatural one. It grounded the idea and when Barker's angels of pain showed themselves, the terror felt palpable and somehow real despite its origins. It was Barker's introduction as a director and the translation of his own work to celluloid proved a striking and horrific entry into the genre. Its sequels, however, proved to be the very definition of cinematic ''image degradation.
After Hellbound: Hellraiser 2, the series became more of a Hellraiser Presents sort of venture, with the cenobites barely bookending the central story. By the time Hellworld made its STV debut the central stories had so little to do with the original mythology that they barely bore the Hellraiser stamp. Revelations seeks to return the franchise back to its roots...unfortunately, it comes across as a reinvention, and one that seems to pay homage to a copy of a copy of the original, missing its mark by a mile.

The story centers on two young men, bored with school, suburbia and everyday life, who decide to take holiday in search of excitement and adventure to relieve their simultaneous case of the doldrums. This is the film's first mistake. Horror enthusiasts, the fans that actually sustain the economic longevity of films through rentals and sell through, remember when horror films were made with actors of all ages, not just post-pubescent teens. We understand that studios are trying to appeal to a VERY specific demographic. Unfortunately these same studios are often so out of touch with their core audience that they will sacrifice years of healthy receipts for a strong opening weekend or VOD release date. Hellraiser Revelations is a prime example of a studio with a franchise that is adored by hardcore fans, yet the persistence of the studio to appeal to a younger audience has bastardized the storyline almost beyond repair. Hence the new entry follows a pair of late teens/ twenty somethings sharing their vapid adventures with an audience that will find it next to impossible to connect with the leads. This is the first mistake's legacy throughout the duration of the film. You simply don't and almost CANNOT care for the central characters. We are given so very little development to two characters whose well being is so beyond the scope of our compassion that we cease to care about what happens to them, let alone the equally annoying peripheral characters.

**SPOILERS**
Like most ill guided forays into genre screenwriting, it is the characters that make or break the tale. This might be the perfect opportunity to reintroduce another lost but still relevant term: YUPPIES. Thats exactly what the entire cast of this film portrays, yuppies. Each and every character represents the very element of our society that has taken their privaleges and used their position to suck the very life out of the middle class (note to filmmakers: a big portion of the horror going audience are hard working blue collar Americans... Americans who might find it very difficult to identify with Revelations' cast.)

SOOO, we have two yuppie teens who decide that their lifestyle (albeit relaxed, pampered and full of hope and promise through ample amounts of mommy and daddy's money) is just too unbearable and to alieve the pressures of ..aw hell let's just make something up here.. umm... growing pains... sure... take off to distant shores in hope of finding themselves. They run into trouble and before they can be whisked back to suburbia they find themselves in a whole other world entirely. The boys' problems follow them back to the good ole US of A and they disappear. Leaving only a videotape with a very different and portly looking Pinhead on it as to what ill fate might have befell them, the boy's families frantically search for answers. THIS is actually the bulk of the film. The boys' misadventures are told through flashbacks of the videos left on the camera and we are left to spend more time with their families, who are equally uninteresting. Revelations tries to insert the core of what made the first film great, but it has absolutely no idea how to go about it and in the end, the only semblance of hell it manages to conjure up... is a little steam, as in "steaming pile". AVOID.



Hellraiser: Revelations is available on DVD and Bluray disc at all major retailers and also available on VOD in select areas.

Review - Redsin Tower

Well howdy there gore hounds its been a while but lets be honest, with original dick pumping fresh content in like peter north on an unfortunate coed, no one missed little old me all that much...

I have come back bearing gifts though ... in the form of fresh independent horror cinema!!! I bring to you first The Redsin Tower by Toe Tag Pictures. I had never seen a Toe Tag movie until now and to be honest had no idea what to expect. Well, like 4 seconds into the film there is a plethora of very nice boobs and that kinda sets the tone for the  picture. The story itself revolves around a freshly broken up couple and how they choose to deal with their estrangement. The girl, like most evil women (I've had bad breakups so deal with it) ...like i was saying evil women..oh yeah she decides to call her best friend over and, being evil women ,they go out in search of parties and boys...woooooo....i mean ...tsk tsk. Her ex does the opposite: he goes from catatonic to psychotic..and decides to get a gun and get her back (not recommended by this reviewer but an option non the less).

The opening of this film leads me to my first problem. There is a lot of this film that sets up the characters, and by this I mean it shows you their lives, desires and personalities. So much the it drags a bit during these sections... not a lot, but its noticeable. This is a small gripe though and it actually does set up the viewer to like the characters a bit more, despite slowing the picture down.

Where was I? Oh yeah, evil woman psycho guy..check. ANYWHO... the girls get to a party that's kinda lame and decide to spice it up by going to the haunted, and infamous Redsin Tower. This is when the movie picks up like a rocket.

Once the group gets there one member becomes possessed and tells the tale of possession and evil that permeates the very walls of the tower. Well, seeing as the group is drunk and stoned, they just don't care and go exploring. The scenes that follow really show what makes this movie tick. There are realistic hatchet attacks...blood ...gore...maggots..and BONUS a demon that basically rapes and impregnates a hot topless chick....not your grandma's horror film, unless she's Leatherface's grandma.

Overall this film is a good gory, independent horror film. It also has a knack for making the viewer feel uncomfortable which is kinda nice since its a horror film and alot of gore movies now a days use CGI blood and cut-a-ways when it comes to the really grisly stuff. These guys go right at it and when you see the bitchy goth chick try to block a hatchet you will understand.

Toetag Pictureshas given us a movie with very good production quality and sound to start off with. The effects are top notch and the realism is high. The few gripes I have are based on a slight bit of drag in the momentum in the beginning and the dialog which can, at times, be jumbled and maybe a little too off the cuff. That being said, for an independent film it works very well and feels like it has considerable weight to it. I liked it and you should too, check it out people.

originally posted by contributor David Winterborne

Review - Red State

To say that Red State is flawed is to undermine director Kevin Smith's attempt at taking his creative talents in a bold new direction. However, if you are not a fan of Smith's work or just don't care then this is going to mean very little to you. So little to you that State might end up coming off as a glorified tv movie about religious zealots and intolerance making familiar bed fellows. Unfortunately, Red State does play a lot like a tv movie almost twenty minutes in and does nothing more than give us a whole lot of the same for the rest of its running time.

In all actuality, Red State should not be reviewed on this site. The film, despite its marketing campaign, is NOT a horror film. In fact, Red State feels like a film that had every intention of being a few different films, but couldn't center on a premise that it felt comfortable with exploring till the end credits. In doing this, the film loses any cohesive thematic elements and it's viewers attention by the end of the first act.

The beginning of Red State is promising though as we are introduced to a trio of overzealous teens as they plan to meet up with an older woman found online through a sex personal. Admittedly, this could have been the start of our horror film right here, and although the set up is a familiar one, it would have been interesting to see where Smith could have gone had he decided to sharpen the story's teeth. The trio quickly run into trouble at the hands of a local religious cult known for their intolerance of sexual deviants and this surprisingly is where the film slows down... WAY down.

Smith has been accused of wordy expositions from his characters, but we are given a sermon from Michael Parks (playing the cult's leader) here so lengthy that we are left looking around the room just waiting for it to run it's course. It's too bad really, as we are given some good performances in State; good performances that are mired in the films inability to give the characters any real weight or importance, but is downright militant in its desire to bloat its dialogue.

Early into the second act we get a Branch Davidian retread so stalely portrayed that we ask ourselves just why State felt it deserved a theatrical release. This might be one of the major reasons Smith himself lobbied so hard to find the film a distributor: it just never elevates itself above a movie of the week status.
I would still love to see Smith try his hand at an honest to goodness horror film. Red State, however, needed a lot more RED before it can come close to calling itself that. NOT Recommended.

Watch the trailer here or take a look at the embed below.


Red State is currently playing as a video on demand title. Contact your local cable company for details.



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Review - Seconds Apart

Afterdark Horrorfest's contributions have been hit and miss admittedly. Although I enjoy a tradition of a cache of films that annually give us a new helping of horror, Afterdark's offerings more closely resemble SyFy faire more than anything else. This last grouping has had some gems, Husk being among the most noteworthy. SO it was with little enthusiasm that I went into Seconds Apart, an evil twins picture that looked part Omen, part Dead Ringers. Fortunately Seconds Apart bypasses the temptation to be either of those films and instead marches to its own sick, sometimes disturbing beat. The end result is very well Afterdark's first real, mature entry that shows us just what the brand may be capable of.

Seconds Apart follows Seth and Jonah Trimble ( Gary and Edmund Entin), two twins that from the start appear to have a very strong and terrifying grip on their high school peers. After the twins are placed at a party where 4 of the school's star football players meet a grisly end after an impromptu game of Russian Roulette, detective Lampkin (Orland Jones) pursues the boys, realizing along his quest that their power might be more than just psychological. Psychological is the operative term here as the thriller explores the demented sadism of the sociopathic Trimble twins.

The real treat here falls squarely on the shoulders of the Entin brothers. Quite possibly roles that these two were literally born to play, both Gary and Edmund Entin are able to convey a familial closeness that is so eerily intimate and at times disturbingly sexual that every scene the two occupies easily rivets you to the following frames. It is this performance that takes Seconds Apart and quite frankly puts it so far ahead of the other Afterdark films that it threatens to nullify even their best entries with its craft and tone. Yes, it is literally that atmospheric of a film.

My only complaint with Seconds Apart is that from the first interaction of the twins with Blooms' character, we get the overwhelming feeling that he is horribly outmatched. Whether intentional or not, it is so apparent that Bloom seems hardly a threat to the two that his character and performance is quite simply undermined by the intensity of the pair. Again, I can't stress enough that this movie is OWNED by the Brothers Entin. Able to sit confidently on the same shelf as movies such as the Bad Seed and Dead Ringers, it is qualified further by superb directing from filmmaker Antonio Negret and a lush haunting score by Lior Rosner.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Watch the trailer here:





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Review - AAH! Zombies

I will say right outta the box that I really like this movie. It is smart, funny, fresh and made on the cheap. This movie shows that good things can come cheap and easy...in my town that is also true... but not about movies. I wanna give great kudos to director/writer Mathew Kohnen who took an often tired concept like zombie movies and looked at it from a new perspective. Well, now that I have handed out the handies lets get to what its all about.

This film is based on the perspective of the zombie and what life... err.. unlife is like through their eyes. It revolves around a group of friends that eat tainted ice cream and become zombies...but they don't know it. To them they have super powers and everything around them is moving super slow..oh and they are invincible. They do seem to have acquired a taste for brains but that doesn't mean anything right?? I mean they still fall in love want to have fun...like to bowl....you know your average zombie activity.

This is all great except those around them see them as slow moving shambling messes. The military (which happens to be where the chemical came from) doesn't want them around, well... because its their fault. They track them down and the zombie...heroes(?) yeah... heroes...  have to escape. They just want to find a home of their own to leave in relative zombie peace.

I would recommend that any zombie aficionado watch this film if not only to see a fresh spin on a tired genre. I also recommend this to a non horror fan who just wants to see a good fun film that gets it right.

originally posted by contributor David Winterborne

Review - Hellraiser: Hellworld

The 8th installment of Clive Barker's Hellraiser franchise is about as enjoyable as shitting a live Rotweiler. It is a prime example of a studio so determined to suck every last drop from one of it's cash cows teats that the teat ends up looking like a lifeless pink twizzler ran through the rinse cycle one too many times. As it goes, "one too many times" is what best characterized this tired and overall impotent entry in the series. It is also the Friday the 13th part 5 of the series.. A shade of it's former self that leaves you wondering "just where is all the hell raisin in dis here Hellraiser" (note that I am wearing a Dale Jr. shirt as I say this... You know... To sell the drama of it..shucks and tarnation and for some reason all these girls with what my father used to call flowerpot tits just can't stand to leave their shirts on.. All due to the heavy thrum of an engine blasting its way through rural Kentucky!)? You know what would really make for a great Hellraiser if this were National Sarcasm Day? How bout one with virtually no Cenobites that manages to literally ass blast the mythology of the series right down the toilet. So maybe "ass blast" is what best characterizes this movie... Sure.. It does roll off the tongue and I see the ewwwww face you're making at that powerful piece of wordsmithing...

Hellworld starts off with an extremely uninteresting group of teenagers (and I know what you're thinking, "teenagers is such a novel way to try to reinvigorate the franchise and capture a new younger market...yawn.") and unfortunately tries to push the story forward with them... There's the beautiful and highly intelligent yet jaded and despondent girl, the horn dog pretty boy, some other girl (just insert stereotype here and let's be done with it), the token black guy AND the troubled, and psychologically shaken hero grappling with his past...sadly even the tired descriptions are more interesting than their celluloid counterparts. The teens, connected by the death of a mutual friend are all enthusiasts of Hellworld, a Hellraiser themed game that looks so utterly behind the times that at one point all of the characters completely abandon it for the drawing power of Trouble... Yes, with the pop-o-magic bubble.. Well no... But it was definitely warranted. Upon completing this steaming little pile of pixels each "person" is given an invitation to a Hellworld party hosted by the android Bishop from Aliens... Sorry.... "synthetic person"... Who now how has an earring which ,in case you didn't know the score, makes any man over 60 cool enough to host some lame ass rave in their house where young women walk around in leather vests with their boobowahs hang in out (I have my ears pierced and the closest I got was seein a couple of wrinkly old bean bags at a Kiss concert that coughed up a cloud of dust during the second verse of Strutter). during the course of the night our protagonists get faced with their own fears (yeah, Why not say to hell with Cenobites and that cube that has generated the studio a bazillion dollars and and just rewrite the rules..sure...) and several die..or do they? Sigh... Turns out that Bishop Is connected to the death that in turn connects our teens or young adults or desperate thirty something actors or whatever together and has orchestrated all of the events in the film to exact his revenge for the death of his son... Who apparently kicked it do to excessive shoveling because all we see the sweaty chap do in flashbacks is hurl dirt over his shoulder while apparently having some kind of heat stroke. So Bishop enlists the help of a drug that apparently does WHATEVER THE FUCK you want it to including mass hallucinations and illicit LOTS of oral sex (ok... I would definitely take the drug...well it's probably a gateway drug... But not to a gateway to Hell because we've already established that this just ain't that kind of Hellraiser movie)? we get dashes of Cenobites here and there before the gang drives the mystery machine right through the script letting us know that this has been nothing more than "events inspired by Hellraiser" and the bulk of the movie has been in the minds of the drugged..err.. Teens. Yeah... Thanks for takin us on the ferry to shit town Mr. Bishop!!! Avoid.

Hellraiser: Hellworld is currently available on Netflix streaming.

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Review - Bite Marks

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Review - Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl

There are moments of your life that you wish you could encapsulate in glass, to watch over and over again and relive the joy felt in that second. There are others that you wish you could abort like a late stage pregnancy, just so you know you got it all and no trace remains. Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl (henceforth known as VGvFG) is the equivalent of a tabasco enema. How something that aims so low that it enters the ass yet still gives you heartburn is beyond the comprehension of this particular reviewer. VGvFG is so damned Asian that I felt whiter than both Winter brothers after watching it. It is not the disturbing Asian of a Miike movie, but the kind of disturbing that comes from eating a pound of bad shellfish after mainlining year old Easter candy. it's confusing, nonsensical and at times almost nausea inducing from it's techno-Japo-Hello Kitty- hallucino-ass fuck ridiculousness.

imagine waking up Christmas morning to find your morbidly obese uncle dressed like a Power Ranger fucking a hamburger and you have nailed the tone and sensibility of VGvFG. Now I do have to admire the bold direction of a lot of Asian cinema to decide to forget convention and just aspire to MAKE ABSOLUTELY NO FUCKING SENSE AT ALL. I can only further illustrate this sentiment by saying that I started watching VGvFG with a slight early summer chest cold and now I have a glowing lymph node that answers to Dr. Pinky Fun Love Time (which might be part of a song used in the film - a soundtrack so diversely bizarre that it consists of part rockabilly and part cancer).

So maybe this is more of a warning than a review... Ok.. Review time. Girl comes to school where vice principal and father of bitchy pedo-target school girl that dresses like a sailor in drag at a police funeral, parades around in kabuki garb while trying to replicate the experiments of Dr. Frankenstein. new girl happens to be a vampire and slips her contaminated vamp blood into chocolates that she randomly gives to boys that look sorta like girls who all sorta dress alike and have an affinity for long swords that morph out of flesh... I honestly can't even fucking finish this... VGvFG has officially given me intestinal distress and I have to drop it's sequel off at the processing lab, which is my cunning way of saying that this piece of shit has worked it's way through my colon to give me one last hurrah before I try to forget it forever. i would review the special features of the bluray... If I fucking hated myself. Holy Shit. Avoid.

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Review - The Violent Kind

The Violent Kind, helmed by The Butcher Brothers, is a film that I expect will leave many horror fans very divided. My major complaint with the film has absolutely nothing to do with the film itself, but the asinine marketing behind it. Stepping in the " way back machine" I remember the horrible campaign that essentially capsized Clive Barker's Nightbreed. Nightbreed, a victim of hapless studio heads that often cut their noses off to spite their greedy little faces, was marketed as an out-and-out slasher film... Which it was SOOO not. The film, which was one of Barker's most ambitious projects, was a tried and true monster film and passed from theaters with nary a whimper, due to it's commercial misrepresentation. Enter The Violent Kind, a tight well crafted little film that crosses enough genres that to call it ambitious would be a bit of an understatement.

The Violent Kind, from it's trailers and cover art, is meant to bring in audiences from Sons of Anarchy, I Spit on Your Grave, and even Texas Chainsaw massacre (thanks to it's cover credits). The film actually doesn't land near any of these and that's a good thing, because when it finds it's voice, we get a very original premise that keeps you waiting for an unveiling that is both unexpected and ambiguous in all the right areas.

The Violent Kind opens with our three major antagonists whooping some ass with little to no conscience. Ringleader "Q" played by Bret Roberts is your quintessential badass, channeling his inner Brolin and channeling it well, but our hero (and I say that very hesitantly) Cody, played by Cory Knauf, is a little more understated, a man that has wronged, but has a little more self awareness about it. We have our eye candy too, and they play their parts as straightforward as our main trio and do so adequately.

After our introduction to the boys, we learn of a birthday party for Cody's mother at the resident biker gang's clubhouse and our story begins. much reveling and partying is had ( more boobies too, hallelujah!!!!) and as our motley Crüe of tattooed riders all begin to head out, our core group lingers, to soon find out that a dark malevolence lies in wait for them. At this point we get treated to sadism, masochism, and even enough cannibalism that we think this is another paint by numbers slasher film... Well... did we actually hear that blood covered flesh eater utter a little demonic growl (might have been distracted by almost supernaturally firm ass on actress in question)? Ummm... Yeah I think we did.... enter a little originality that separates Kind from many of it's peers.

Well shot, well acted, and well crafted all around, The Violent Kind suffers a little from it's unlikeable core characters and an antagonist that might prove a little too ambivalent for some. If you're scratching your head at the end well, that's not such a bad thing in a genre often polluted with remakes and DTV schlockers is it?

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Review - Husk

Husks works on a very basic strength. It is one of the few recent horror offerings that shows a group of characters that could exist in a number of cinematic settings. Husk's core cast plays upon the common stereotypes that most horror movies are known for, and then pulls the rug out from under you.

**SPOILER ALERT**

Husk loses it's only female cast member within the first quarter of the film. I'm neither some radical misogynist or a sexist (ok, this might actually hinge upon who you ask), but I am a realist and I call it like I see it. In a world where people are systematically taken out by supernaturally charged scarecrows... The weakest links will be targeted first. This is where husks, for all of it's supernatural trappings, is grounded in a world that still has a smidgeon of logic. Each character in the group is tested and each has their moments of self discovery when faced with their own mortality. Shit. I really am getting far too philosophical for a movie about killer scarecrows. HOWEVER... These characters, for all their faults, do appear to actually care about each other, and, despite having their own battle plans that do threaten this solidarity, are willing to threaten their individual safeties for one another.

And this is where Husk really engaged me. Note to filmmakers.. People really do want to care about the characters on screen. It makes a difference. I mean it REALLY makes a difference. So much of a difference that it takes a film like Husk, one that really isn't intent on reinventing the game and sets it apart from some of it's lesser peers.

So, we've pointed some of this Horrorfest's entry's strengths out... Let's move on, shall we? Husk's largest fault actually lies in it desire to tell a horror story complete with it's own brand of logic. It works a little too hard to contain a mythology that actually devalues it's finer points. Husk works a litttle better when we are left to wonder about the underlying mystery and cause of the phenomena rather than when it tries to spell it out for us. We are left with a backstory that does little to explain the ferocity of the attacks we are witnessing and it tends to leave the viewer a little underwhelmed. Does it's shortcomings tip the scales though? Luckily the answer is no.

Our trio of core cast members including Devon gray, who many of you will recognize from the flashback portions of multiple episodes of Dexter, C.J. Thomason of tv's Harper's Island and Wes Chatham (sorry Wes..nothing horror related in your bio to mention) hold this film together and keep us watching till the credits roll. The is a chemistry here which makes their friendship very believable and ultimately makes this a recommended viewing.

For those anti-socialites out there who could care less about platonic love among men... Which still sounds pretty icky in any context... the scarecrows are of the fast, pissed off variety which makes the threat in husk as real as it's characters.

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Location:N Vermilion St,Danville,United States

Review - Drive Angry

Somewhere, and I’m guessing its probably in the lab attached to that bunker where they keep the Ark of the Covenant for a rainy day, there is a strand of Nic cage’s hair holding up a Lear jet, ala Superman 4. SO, when I saw the trailer for Patrick Lussier’s latest, Drive Angry, I quite literally shat my pants full of “OMFG!!! This movie actually has a piece of Cage’s Magic-Grow locks hurtling towards the audience in 3D”. Despite wondering exactly what could save the audience should Cage’s hair escape the world of 3D and threaten to decapitate the entire front row of the AMC multiplex, I decided to give the flick a go,being an unabashed fan of Lussier’s My Bloody Valentine.

Lussier is a great example of a director that knows how to actually utilize the 3D process. Paying those extra few dollars for a 3D ticket at some time should actually pay off (you know who I’m referring to Mr. Clash **yawn** of the Titans) and I was initially impressed with the director’s use in Valentine. Angry delivers on the 3D promise, lemme say that up front. There is nary a shot that doesn’t take full use of lush multi-layered backgrounds. This is 3D that we expect, but rarely get. That being said, the real question is whether or not the movie can sustain the inventive 3D that Lussier employs.

I liked Drive Angry. I actually really dug it. Although I admittedly was looking for the batshit Herzog Cage, the Charlie Sheenage was more than subdued this time around offering a more stoic, silent badassery that ends up playing to the camera really well. It’s a good thing too because the real turn-it-up-to-11-quantum-speed-hump performance comes from William Fichtner as The Accountant. The man literally fucks the dog shit out of every scene he is in and knows exactly what to bring to the character to give you the “oh shit” moments a film like this deserves. It is Fichtner that elevates this movie to a place where it succeeds beyond just a spring launch pad to one of the biggest movie summers in recent history. Even if the rest of the picture feels forgettable, The Accountant is one of the more memorable takes on a character archetype that many have laughably failed at executing and he does it with enough dead pan “your mother’s tramp stamp is the fake name I gave her” coolness that could very well propel the film to a cult hit on video.

I’m not going to re-hash the story of Drive Angry here because frankly that isn’t where its strength lies. It does a good enough job of telling the tale, of course, but it’s the wrapper that keeps you entertained. This is a movie that is both an homage and its own voice. It’s not too smug or too self aware too induce the kind of eye-rolling that you might expect from its premise. Cage plays a man fueled by revenge and a sense of obligation to break out of the very literal hell he was imprisoned in to stop a Satanic cult from sacrificing his infant granddaughter to their dark lord (not to start sucking my own dick here, but with the way I put it maybe the story does seem a little worthwhile, but I digress). The Accountant gets dispatched by good ole Mr. Splitfoot to bring him back and you get the picture from there.

As a guy that knows what other guys expect in this near exploitation film…yes, there is plenty of eye candy to keep the orbs occupied when shit isn’t exploding. Nic’s journey includes picking up a sidekick in the form of Amber Heard. We all know that ass is pretty interchangeable in a vehicle like this, but I really liked Heard in Pineapple Express and she turns this one in with the same level of enthusiasm.

With a couple of great cameo performances and enough action set pieces to keep you looking forward to the next one, Angry’s only fault comes in the form of its pacing. It’s a problem that comes with a film of its kind and that’s when the action sets a bar that makes it difficult when dialogue is necessary. It never slows down enough to make you glance at your watch, but too much dialogue in a film like Angry can almost seem unnecessary.

All in all, Drive Angry is a solid film that feels very 70s and 80s in all the best ways. Definitely worth the extra ticket price to see it in 3D too.

Review - I Spit on Your Grave (2010)

The 2010 remake of the 70s schlocker hit does exactly what it sets out to do. It shoots straight on the original premise while giving the audience a bright new shiny wrapper to wash it down. Revenge is a greedy lover. It doesn’t just go for the tit for tat one-uppance of high school rivalries and sibling disagreements. It puts flaming bags of dog shit on your doorstep while it deflowers your sister.

Sarah Butler steps into Camille Keaton’s shoes as the titular character Jennifer Hills. Jennifer is a novelist come to clear her head and write her latest book to the backdrop of some good old fashioned peace and quite.. out in the middle of fuckin nowhere. The middle of “fuckin nowhere part “ is of course where Ms. Hills’ fate takes a sharp turn into torture porn territory. After a chance run in with some local boys (i.e. that oh so charming brand of Kentuckian miscreant that wears equal part bathroom Drakaar and doe rut with his camouflage tuxedo…and just in time for prom too… he’s so dreamy!!!) our heroine becomes the target of the homicidal hillbilly rapists and takes a Greg Louganis offa Backdoor Holler bridge… resurfacing a month later to give these mudafuckas some well deserved what for.

I’m not for sure if it was with regret, cynicism or contempt that I realized about halfway through I Spit on Your Grave that I was watching it through the eyes of an entirely new generation. I was no longer discovering a film of its ilk by word of mouth and bringing it home on a Friday night to later tell my friends Monday morning how I watched the most fucked up videos that past weekend. I was watching it through the tinted lenses of someone who has sat through the dimestore vulgarities of countless straight-to-video Hostel ripoffs, Texas Chainsaw wannabees and ingrate, “guess who’s watching you from the hills”, my momma was raped by nuclear, moonshine swigging, incest lovin, prom date killin hillbillies with an insatiable bloodlust. Don’t get me wrong. I love my horror. I love it in its simplest, nastiest, bone crushing glory. So, when people fault Spit for using the brutality vehicle as a novelty… well, what choice did it have? Today’s audience and cinematic brutality are old bed fellows. So have we seen it all before? Yes and no.

The idea of homicidal rapists nestled in the backroads and byways of Uncle Sam’s somewhat southerly states is not the freshest of concepts. The atrocities they are willing to commit when a pretty girl invades their stompin grounds…well.., we’ve seen this one before too. In all honesty, we’ve seen almost everything here before. Somehow though, Spit ends up working better than it should if nothing more than its simple reversal of gender in its final revenge scheme. It’s not bad enough to be ostracized for being weaker, less socially adept or just having weird hobbies. We know this and some readers may even know this a little too well. It is the idea of being targeted for something so completely beyond your control that the very idea of it is inescapable and infuriating. This is where Spit actually succeeds. You hate the antagonists a little more here and you revel a little more when theirs finally comes around. This is in essence the crux of a revenge picture, and that is what this is once you peel away some of the more horrific elements. I Spit on Your Grave is able to keep its roots in a couple of camps while still calling to the core horror audience. It suffers from the simple convention of being a movie of its time, but it does so with solid direction and ample performance from its lead and co-stars. It might not leave your jaw gaping in the end, but it might put a guilty sneer across your face in the form of a nice little shotgun crescendo that puts a literal and grisly twist to ass-to-mouth.