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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