Thankskilling

Cast: Lance Predmore, Lindsey Anderson, Ryan Francis, Aaron Carlson, Natasha Cordova, Chuck "The Dead Body Guy (Whatever that means?)" Lamb, General Bastard, Wanda Lust (This movie isn't a porno but I can't speak for other movies Ms. Lust has been in... it's possible she just got born with an unfortunately provocative name! And an unfortunately ironic tendency to show up in films with her tits out for no apparent reason... hmm...), Terry Reagan, Jessica Rees, Pat Love.

I know I usually list only a couple of people in the film but, well, I just felt this movie needed special attention.


Synopsis: Normally I write my own synopsis of the movies I review but since this movie is a particular gem I've decided to post the synopsis the film-makers have on their website...

"An evil turkey is unleashed…and he’s one “fowl” mouthed bastard! Five college kids heading home for Thanksgiving break cross paths with the turkey, who’s possessed by an ancient Indian curse. In this hilariously gory spoof, the teens must stop the maniac bird before he kills them all!"

That's right. A killer turkey... I posted their synopsis so that you didn't think I was making this up as some sort of cruel prank.


Review: The fact that this movie's very first shot is a close up of someone's tit and is immediately followed by a rather unconvincing hand-puppet turkey cackling while waving a hand axe around at the tit's owner gives you some idea about how seriously the viewer should take this film which is just as well because if I had begun thinking the film-makers were going to try and somehow make a killer turkey into any amount of a serious film I'd have been bitterly bitterly dissapointed. Instead the audience knows from the getgo that this is not in any way a film to be taken seriously and the film makers are aware of it so it's okay to laugh at the film and not feel bad!

Huzzah!

It wouldn't have stopped me laughing at it... I've seen some God-awful movies (See: anything by Bill Zebub) and laughed hysterically at how mind-numbingly terrible they are - hell, half the time it's better than watching a well-made, perfectly scripted snore-fest really but there's always a little less guilt when you know the people making the film wouldn't be crying on the inside to know you were enjoying the hilarity of their movie more than the horror (Unless I totally missed the point and have turned the film makers suicidal by my scathing words. In which case, I'd like to apologize... but won't).

Basically it's a fun little horror film. While making a mockery of the wise-cracking ridiculous bad guys we often see in slasher flicks, it manages to be a half-way decent slasher itself. Although the plot is as thin as the budget must have been, the film has been made with full knowledge that when you try and make an entirely serious horror film with a budget of $2 you end up churning out some utter unwatchable shit (Or a Lucio Fulci film, at best) so far better to make a cheesey script with a bunch of awkward comedy (A turkey actually "stuffs" a girl from behind... if you know what I mean? ... yeah, I mean it fucks her... it's a really awakard moment and I'd like to point out once more that this really really isn't a porno film. Honest!)!

Really a film about a killer turkey couldn't have been made better... if it had been more serious it would have made me vomit and if it had been less serious... well, that wouldn't have been possible. They really bottomed out on the seriousness! That's a good thing though, remember that when you decide to make a film about a killer Easter Bunny or some shit...


In Short: I'd put a cunning little Thanksgiving themed pun about being "stuffed full of gore" or "leaves you wanting seconds... or thirds!" or "so good you have to unbuckle your belt and go into a food coma with an Uncle you haven't spoken to all year"(?) but they'd all be redundant since the movie itself stole all the good ones, leaving we humble reviewers out in the dark, frankly. Fuck it.


Biggest Positive: The jokes about JonBenet Ramsay. Who knew there could be an appropriate medium for such terribly inappropriate jokes?


Biggest Negative: Well, let's face it, the hand puppet is about as convincing as a plastic dinosaur at the bottom of a cereal box.


Trivia: This movie is based, word for word, on a scroll found at the site of the very first thanksgiving. How they knew about JonBenet Ramsay back then is anyone's guess...

ThanksKilling Movie website

Rambo (2008)

Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Julie Benz


Synopsis: We find a somewhat retired looking Rambo hunting for king cobras in the wild plains of Thailand and selling them to some creepy underground snake-fighting pen (as you do) when suddenly and without warning a gimpy bald guy asks him to lead him and his group of bible bashers into the midst of a war-torn Burma. Being the hot blooded, war seeking, wild action hero he is he dives right in like so many blood thirsty lunatics before him! No, not really. He tells the dude to fuck off but when his slightly prettier blonde girlfriend says "paaaweeeeeeeaaaaaaaase?" how can he refuse?
Explosions and many many exploding blood-red bodies ensue!


Review: The perfect movie!

I kid you not. Rambo, as we all know, is an 80's action icon so there's two ways that a sequel this far away from the awesomely violent (non pg-13) blood curdling, foul mouthed action films of that era could go.

It could turn itself into a mock-up of itself and play to the inherent humor that lies underneath any super-macho action flick and end up with a bunch of stupid mumbling teens muttering that "Well it was fun but it wasn't as good as Hot Shots!". It would be hilarious and make millions! (And swiftly be forgotten about within a month of it's release)

Or Sly Stallone could say "Live to make an R-rated bloody, fucking serious motherfucker of a sequel, or die (Hard with a vengeance) for nothing!".And that he did!

Let's list the awesome things about this film

• The film was filled with blood flying from every area of anyone's body that it could possibly splatter out from.
• The "plot" and vague hint at any idea of a romance for John Rambo was short-lived and only served (rightfully so) as brief moments in between the carnage with which to catch your breath.
• There were fucking gun fights. Not just gun fights, fucking gun fights. Never have I felt so invigorated when someone was blown into pieces than during some of the battles (Which were more like one sided massacres really)during this film!
• Sometimes, after about a thousand people had been blown up, sliced, stabbed, shot or smashed they would play sad music to give you the sads thus making the movie deep - before getting right back to explosions and gun fights
• It was only 90 minutes long! Definitely something lacking in the modern action flick is the film-makers ability to not jerk it off into a 2 - 2 1/2 hour fucking epic. Action films should be 90 minutes long and no longer! Any longer and it's a piece of trash trying to pass itself off as decent entertainment.

In Short: The only reason to not give this 5 smileys out of 5 is because there was dialogue in the film which frankly, brought me down.


Biggest Positive: The shakespearian quality the film has in that we, the audience, the observers are aware of the inevitability and the fate by which all the characters in the film will fall even before they, the characters, themselves could be aware of such.
(i.e. you know whenever Rambo shows up some fucks are about to get their shit fucked up, son!)


Biggest Negative: Too much romance, not enough human killing.


Trivia: Before this film was filmed there, Burma was a neutral peace-loving country but the film's explosions and gun fights sparked off a civil war that has raged the country for the past 60 years. For this reason Sylvester Stallone was unjustly sought out and captured by the United Nations for crimes against humanity. A crime which he is only partly responsible for. He promptly escaped his maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, he survives as a soldier of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help and if you can find him, maybe you can hire Sylvester Stallone.


The Official Rambo Movie Website

House By The Cemetery

Cast: Catriona McColl, Paolo Malco, Giovanni Frezza, Ania Pieroni's amazing caterpillar eyebrows.


Synopsis: A New York couple move into a house in New England which is, as one might guess, not next to a cemetery at all... what? Well a cemetery at least plays a role in the film but I fail to see why this film wasn't called "House With A Cemetery Within Walking Distance". Whatever. Killings ensue blah blah.


Review: While it's true that the acting is pretty awful, the unnecessary close ups of people's eyes are pointless at worst and shaky at best and the child in the film is so obnoxious that you're wishing death upon him as soon as you see his smug little albino-looking chops enter the screen, if you're looking for a film with the longest, most drawn out, gory, bat killing sequence in cinema history then look no further than The House By The Cemetery!


In Short: This movie was directed by Lucio Fulci which means it's both great and awful at the same time. The plot is wafer thin but the gore is fairly abundant.


Biggest Positive: The gore, quite clearly was the most redeeming feature of this film...


Biggest Negative: Everything that wasn't gory.


Trivia: This film was shot in less than two minutes and in five different languages.

A Review of House By The Cemetery by someone who possibly gives a flying fuck about actually reviewing things properly

Repo! The Genetic Opera

Cast: Alex Vega, Anthony Stewart Head, Paris Hilton, Paul Sorvino


Synopsis: In a dark future where organ transplants have become both a necessity and a fashion accessory, a corrupt government legalizes the repossession of organs by those people who can't make their payments to the ever twisted GeneCo. the proclaimed 'Savior of Humanity'. The grizzly fate of harvesting people's organs is left to one man - The Repo Man. Who has his own unforgiving tale to tell... and for some bizarre reason everyone in the future sings all the time about every single thing ever.


Review: WTF?


Biggest Positive: As far as original ideas for films go they don't come much better than this, both the plot and the concept are fairly original at least in cinema these days...


Biggest Negative: After not too long it does get a little bit grating hearing people sing about everything. I mean, everything. The weather. Breakfast. (I know, I know, it's an opera what did I expect? I'm just saying - maybe I'm not an opera-guy)

Trivia: This film was nominated for five hundred Oscars including 'Best Operatic Piece Starring Paris Hilton Based In A Neon-Dark Future'

Repo! The Genetic Opera's website

The Tripper

Cast: Lukas Haas, Jaime King, Paul Reubens, Jason Mewes


Synopsis: A bunch of hippies gather in a forest in California for an annual "free love" music festival but little do they know an old enemy of the hippy lifestyle is hunting them down, one by one...


Review: I'm glad this movie had the balls to paint an accurate picture of Ronald Reagan as an axe wielding, hippy slaughtering, mass murdering maniac!

I have a new found respect for David Arquette (who directed this) because I had no idea that he had any opinions until I watched this movie.


In Short: Just say maybe!


Biggest Positive: The definition of 'The Trickle Down Effect' as "When one big asshole goes crazy and the whole world goes to shit"


Biggest Negative: The music over the end credits got a little bit preachy. The rest of the film was just amusing.


Trivia: Ronald Reagan, politically speaking, was a bit of a tool - in spite of what you might hear elsewhere.


The Tripper's MySpace Page

No Country For Old Men

Cast: Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin, Javier Berdem


Synopsis: Josh Brolin find a stash of money amongst a bunch of dead Mexican drug lords, meanwhile Javier Bardem is killing people with an air powered cattle-killy thing, meanwhile Tommy Lee Jones is mumbling incoherently about nothing in particular, meanwhile Kelly MacDonald is talking about something I can't quite listen to because I'm too busy thinking "You're Scottish. Where has your accent been in the last 2 films I've seen you in?", meanwhile I just discovered that the guy that played the Deputy Sherrif (Garret Dillahunt) was Krug in "The Last House On The Left" who incidentally, in that film not this one, looked a bit like Josh Brolin, who in the meantime is sort of meandering about his business trying to hide with the money while meanwhile, Javier Bardem kills more people. Somehow all these people's plots are all about the same thing in the same movie...


Review: Why is it that every Coen brothers film I've seen has a plot that if you were to tell it to someone (e.g. "There's Mexican drug lords and Josh Brolin steals their money after they all die in a mass shoot-out but Javier Bardem plays this guy who needs that money and will stop at nothing to kill everyone in his path to get to it! Then a hired assassin shows up to kill either Josh, Javier or both! And the cops are hot on Javier's trail the whole way but can't quite get him as he gets closer and closer to catching Josh Brolin!") they'd think the film would be full of car chases, epic gun battles and multiple budget-busting explosions (There is one in this film but it's hardly Bay-esque!) but in reality the Coen brothers tend to make the film just about a bunch of slightly eccentric ugly people saying weird shit?


In Short: Too much romance, not enough human killing


Biggest Positive: "Would you hold still, please, sir..."


Biggest Negative: Not enough on screen violence. Is that wrong?


No Country For Old Men website


Trivia: 50 people died of boredom in early screenings of this film so the Coen brothers has to trim a half-hour long sequence of Josh Brolin watching an entire episode of Jeoporday in real-time and complete silence.

Into Thy Hands

Cast: Bill Zebub, Debbie Dee


Synopsis: Apparently this film was about a man who thought he was the second coming of Christ... uh...


Review: This was an abominable waste of everyone's time. Clearly somewhere in the dirty dirty shores of New Jersey a long haired hell's angel type (Named "Bill Zebub" no less...) was tired of listening to the local Death Core Metal scene and decided he would set about making a video in which he could play the sweaty lead role while a bunch of girls took their clothes off and let him look at them and, if he could get the right "actresses", touch them. *Bill Zebub titters like a school girl*

I can only imagine the looks he got when he was putting his script out there...

Bill Zebub: So what do you think?

Producer: Uh... Mr. Zebub, we don't make porn flicks here.

Bill Zebub: This isn't porn! This is a deeply anti-religious piece in which I reflect on man's inhumanity to even the Heavenly Father's son who was sent to save us as he returns to Earth in a vengeful state. It's a pseudo-cult modern day classic tale...

Producers: Right... and why is there a naked chick in every scene?

Bill Zebub: Because I like titties.

Producer: And why are you playing the lead role?

Bill Zebub: Because I like titties.

Producer: And why should we make this film?

Bill Zebub: Because you like titties?

Producer: Sold!


In Short: This was the biggest pile of shit I've ever had the misfortune to sit through and unlike "Home Made", I'm not going ot feel bad if Mr. Bill Zebub stumbles upon this review and cries himself to sleep about it.


Biggest Positive: It was only about an hour long. Had all the unnecessary close ups of candles and awkwardly long non-sex scenes been cut it would have been a five minute short.


Biggest Negative: The whole fucking disaster. Nothing was good about this film.


Bill Zebub's website - I haven't been here so enter it at your own risk.


Trivia: "Into Thy Hands" is used in some underground Korean medical circles to induce vomitting.

Home Made

Cast: Jason Impey


Synopsis: A notorious film maker is striving to make the ultimate snuff film by killing a bunch of random people.


Review: What in the world was this film doing on a DVD collection of horror films I recently purchased? I mean, kudos to the film-maker. Not only does it seem like a fairly reasonable film of practice shots that I'm sure will serve him well if he ever makes a proper production, and fair play to him for managing to get it on any sort of official release in a foreign country (The film is from the U.K. and I'm in the U.S.) but really, this served as little more than inspiration for me to go out and make a horror film since apparently you can just film a bunch of people walking endlessly before eventually meeting their not-so-gory end in some fairly unrealistic death scenes, followed by another person walking endlessly before dying in a similar boring fashion and have it pass as a releasable work of art.


In Short: ...


Biggest Positive: The director must feel pretty fucking sweet that this got released


Biggest Negative: I don't.


Jason Impey's Website - he's the director and also plays the director in the film he directed about a director.


Trivia: Unlike other films I've given poor reviews to I might feel a pang of guilt of the director reads this...

Who Can Kill A Child?

Cast: Lewis Fiander, Prunella Ransome, Bunch Of Annoying Spanish Brats

Synopsis: An English couple decides to take their vacation on a remote island which has no contact to the mainland and with no idea who lives there, where they'll stay or why on Earth they don't just find a quiet village on the mainland like any other normal vacationing couple only to find that the island is all but deserted save for the occasional snotty little vicious kids, a bunch of corpses and a creepy looking Spanish dude rocking an awesome 'tache.


Review: The idea of the film is simple: A group of kids on an isolated island decided for reasons unknown to up and kill all the adults and take the island as their own. The adults could have easily overpowered the children but didn't because... (dun dun DUN!)... who can kill a child? A nice premise and one that surely could be thought provoking and deep in a "let's discuss it over a few pints while we all get shit faced and laugh about the piss poor special effects" kind of way if the film hadn't begun with about ten minutes of lengthy tedious intro voice-over telling us that there have been hundreds of instances during man's inhumanity to man (Wars, famine etc etc.) where the kids, either inadvertently or deliberately, are the first and the most plentiful to be killed. So the film basically shot itself in the ass from the get go on that one

Who can kill a child?

All these people can and did

Oh...

The end!

Instead we follow a couple of fairly obnoxious English people as they trek through the island contemplating their own failed existence and wondering when the silly bitch is going to realize that she should just let her husband brandish the biggest Gatling gun available and plow through the hordes of snotty pre-teens like it was a ridiculous 'Nam movie shot by Michael Bay.

I think this movie had some real potential - it could have had the creepy kid element, it could have been a real gut-wrnecher as far as the kid killing was concerned and it had the isolation down but I feel overall the movie fell way short of it's potential...


In Short: Worth a watch? Sure, but don't get excited just because it got an X rating in Britain and was banned in Finland. I dunno what that means, for all I know Bambi is banned in Finland...


Biggest Positive: The realistic language barrier. You half expect the main guy to just start yelling at the "crazy foreigners" when they start to struggle with words... wait, that's my biggest positive? That sucks... oh well


Biggest Negative: It's hard to watch without thinking how much creepier, scarier, gorier, better it could have been no matter how much you enjoy it...


IMDb Page


Trivia: The spanish word for A-Bomb is "bomba atómica"

The Last House On The Left (2009)

Cast: Garret Dillahunt, Sara Paxton, Monica Potter, Tony Goldwyn

Synopsis: When the recently crumbled and bought-over movie studio New Line ended up cold and alone and without a hope for a future, Hollywood decided to ambush it in the woods! First they turned to something they owned but didn't create - Friday the 13th. They took Jason and they destroyed him utterly. Then they turned their sites on destroying one of New Line's shining stars, Wes Craven's babies - The Last House On The Left. They took The Last House On The Left and savagely raped it repeatadly in the woods and told it to fondle A Nightmare On Elm Street's breasts and piss it's pants. It promptly did so and once it was at it's lowest point, Hollywood remade Last House On The Left and turned it into a pile of excrement...

In it's dying breath, Last House On The Left fell to the ground, clawing at the dirt and croakily screamed to Nightmare On Elm Street - "Run! Don't... let... them... remake... you... too!".

And with that - The Last House On the Left was destroyed...

Review: I don't know why we feel compelled to go to the cinema to see movies like this when there were perfectly good movies like... well, I guess Watchmen is the best one out just now but hell, I bet Miss March would be in many ways a superior film to this.

It wasn't a bad film really but you have to remember that it's basically starting from a very low point given that it's a god-damned unnecessary remake (again!) so that automatically sets it at a negative score right now...

It wasn't nearly (even remotely close) as gritty and almost snuff-like as the original but that was to be expected... perhaps though it was expected too much by some members of the audience who seemed to be appalled when the rape sequence began. I mean, did they think it was just going to be left out altogether? Perhaps they were (more likely) too young to have even seen the original and have parents too dumb to realize they shouldn't even be seeing a watered down remake of Last House On the Left.

Anyway, the rape scene began and so many people left the theater that it made me want to spin round in circles and laugh! My wife pointed out all the "evacuees"; but I surmised eventually that they probably just had to pee or get snacks and chose the awkward scene to do it in.

But then out of the ten or thereabouts that left only a couple seemed to return to the theater...

I guess people generally don't want to sit and watch a girl get forcibly fucked in the ass.
At least not in a room full of strangers anyway, that's awkward!

The film has promise but falls way short of being either as gritty as the original or able to be a mainstream "re-imagining" and popularized version of the it. Instead it is some sort of middle ground for lazy people who can't be bothered to locate a copy of the original.

There's too much cutting between "shaky-cam" and regular camera work too and the shaky-cam is extremely forced, you can tell someone's trying to make it seem cheap and nasty but failing, since you can tell they're trying.

In Short: A decent enough, watchable film but a few too many attempts at arty shots and close ups of girls panties - done in a way that makes you feel like the director thought that's all you had to do to make a film dirty and raw.

Biggest Positive: It stayed fairly true to the original film, a lot more than it could have and a lot more than many remakes do.

Biggest Negative: The original wasn't that good to begin with so they were pretty much fucked from the get-go.



Trivia: In order to fully experience this film in the best possible way pick up a pair of the super-special dark 3D glasses on the way in and put them on right away so no-one can tell you're taking a nap!

Eden Lake

Cast: Kelly Reilly, Michael Fassbenger

Synopsis: A couple makes plans to spend a romantic weekend away but have it turned into a blood filled horror-fest when a bunch of Neds (Chavs, Townies, whatever) start stalking and attacking them.

Review: This is one of few horror films that genuinely scared me somewhat in recent years, especially since it didn't involve the things which usually scare me: Rape sequences, killing animals or German people. But this managed to do it!

Probably because I know that somewhere out there, there are little fucker Ned shitheads who might pull this shit off if you spilled their White Lightning on their bright white kappas. So I knew what the poor bastards in the film were going through...

Highly recommended film for all the family!

In Short: I have never been so glad to be now living in a country without Neds in my life!

Biggest Positive: Genuinely fearful! Managing to scared of something that could happen and not something that only maybe possibly, but probably wouldn't ever, happen.

Biggest Negative: Neds are really fucking annoying and since the film's about them they're quite prevalant.

Eden Lake's Website - this site is pretty nifty, you should go!

Trivia: Eden Lake is currently being used by the British tourist board to show a better side of British youth!

Quarantine

Cast: Jennifer Carpenter, Steve Harris, Jay Hernandez, That guy from Ally McBeal

Synopsis: What happens when you trap a group of people in an inner-city building without explanation and let wild zombie folks tear them to pieces? You get the intro to Dawn Of The Dead, I guess... but what if those folks aren't zombies and are actually rabid crazies? I guess that's 28 Days Later... yeah well, what if the rabies is fast acting and randomly makes people want to bite and eat each other? That's still 28 Days Later I guess... well okay, but what if there was a trendy "nightvision" shot where the viewer is the only one that knows what's going on? That's just 28 Weeks Later now, huh? Well fuck, what if the whole thing was shot on amazing(ly annoying) SHAKY-CAM-VISION! Now you've got Quarantine!

Review: Blah blah blah stuck in building, blah blah blah rabies, blah blah zombie film without the zombies.
That's pretty much the gist of this film. That may sound like a derogatory review but believe me that leads to a pretty half-way decent flick! A lot of blood, a bunch of death (some particularly nasty falls and smashes actually) and some decent action sequences. The shaky-cam isn't too bad, since this film establishes the professionalism of the man behind the camera and thereby giving the film-maker a way to not make it suck to be "authentic" although it is wholly unnecessary and doesn't really achieve anything that couldn't have been achieved by just filming the movie like they weren't pretentious fuckers.
Some slight problems with consistencies though in that the, for example, the virus spreads to it's victims in a matter of minutes. In minutes or less the victim is a foaming maniac, hell-bent on biting other people's faces suddenly... except for one character who is infected for hours before any symptoms kick in (Just at the right moment!) because it worked better for the "plot".

Another example, the victims seem to attack on site (Though not each other, go figure!) all through the movie until at one point it makes for a more "tense" moment if the victim waits until the person slo-o-o-o-o-owly turns around checking all their surroundings before finally facing them to attack... I guess these rabid brainless fucktards have a sense of dynamic tension! Must be part of the lesser prevalent side-effects...

Also a word of advice to anyone caught in the situation the characters find themselves in the end of the film (Stuck in a dark room with a rabid half-naked granny-looking thing chucking pots and pans everywhere while you are armed with a camera with night vision - happens all the time to me), don't just sit there and film the cowering girl next to you ignoring where the crazy rabid bitch is! Instead, maybe try using your advantage (seeing in the pitch black) to beat the un-living shit out of the foaming cunt!
And instead of just hoping that for some reason while the bitch is tearing everything in the room apart without exception because she's a few olives short of a greek salad she'll somehow just coincidentally pass over the corner of the room where the two of you are shivering to yourselves if you "just keep quiet", why not try moving your stupid asses out of there?
Hey, you know what else was "just keeping quiet"? THE WHOLE FUCKING ROOM FULL OF INANIMATE OBJECTS THAT SOME MENTAL PATIENT IS CURRENTLY TEARING APART WITH NO SENSE OF LOGIC OR THOUGHT! So maybe, just maybe, sitting quietly with your fucking camera on (I'm sure that thing has a little red light like every other one on the planet) you should get off your stupid asses and do something? Just a thought...

Besides annoyingly convenient plot devices, pointless shaky-cam-o-vision and the fact that it's a remake (Hiss!) this film is probably worth watching though.
If you have an unlimited rental service like NetFlix (Or Shareaza, pow!).
And if you don't have anything else in your queue you could be watching.
And if nothing good's on TV.
And if you don't mind unoriginal films.
And if you suck.

Seriously, the film wasn't that bad. Here's a trailer for [REC] though (The film this was a remake of)

Biggest Positive: Well devised (I feel [rec] gets that credit though) and, towards the end starts to actually build up the tension you waited through the rest of the movie expecting to get in abundance.

Biggest Negative: The unnecessary Shaky Cam... it's been overused lately and unlike this, Cloverfield and Diary Of The Dead both had reasons to be using that effect...

Quarantine the DVD Website - inl. Trailer

Trivia: Unlike Cloverfield and the Blair Witch Project - Quarantine has the "shaky-cam" effect because all that shit really happened!

Midnight Meat Train

Cast: Vinnie Jones, Bradley Cooper, Leslie Bibb 

  Synopsis: A freelance photographer who's career is going nowhere (Probably because the camera he owns is a piece of shit) discovers that the subway holds more secrets than just great tasting subs and low-cal flatbreads - they are also home to a grizzly underground world in which Vinnie Jones butchers victims of late night trains and unloads them at an unknown destination... 

  Review: The film starts out pretty well, setting the scene for a good horror flick by entering us straight into the action rather than trying to build up to it. Trailers to the film made promises of a lot of gore and it becomes apparent in the first few scenes that the film is going to deliver that at least. Some of the gore is far too obviously CGI effects but for the kind of visuals the film seemed to be going for, "real" gore might not have worked - a bit of a let down but it isn't overly done so it doesn't take away from the film too much. The film has some pretty stunning visuals, nice camera angles and camera effects and they're all pretty well placed and used but at times it seems very forced, as if the director and editing crew wanted to practice a bunch of techniques they learned about while watching the DVD Extras to some Eli Roth movie so sometimes you find yourself sort of thinking "Yeah, very nice but can I see what's actually going on here?" but overall the film meets its goals. The acting is reasonable, perhaps even above par for a movie of this caliber, and Vinnie Jones once again proves he can play a lumbering speechless barbarian very well. So, overall an above-par horror film... pretty much until the last 20 minutes or so when things start to go a little weird... Spoilers do follow, major ones that might make you not want to see the film, so I've put them in white so they're disguised - just click and hold to reveal my awesome secrets: 

  SPOILERS: So the film is progressing along and, much like many horror films - especially small time ones, you find yourself wondering how will this end! Smaller horror films (and some big ones) still occasionally end with miserable endings which is great because then you don't know who's going to live and who's going to die or what's going to happen at all! So it gets to the final scenes - wimpy photographer is following the Butcher into the subway and brandishing all sorts of ridiculous weaponry in order to make the final scenes as cheesye as possible and I find myself thinking that - given the cheese-factor already apparent - the filmmakers are having a hard time coming up with a good and reasonable way to end this film and given that the film is based on a book it might be that the book has a pretty silly ending and they don't know how to deal with it, so what's going to happen? These are pretty much the options I had in my mind... 

1. Wimpy Photographer kills Butcher. Butcher is forced under train thus no remains are found. Police find Photographer guilty of all crimes. Girlfriend cries a lot. The End! 

2.  Turns out the Photographer is the Butcher and has been all along and he invented this other world to escape from his life. In the end, confronted with his girlfriend knowing the truth he ends up shot by her. Girlfriend cries a lot. The End! 

3.  Turns out the girlfriend is the Butcher and has been all along. In the end, she kills him and moves on with her underground slaughtering life. Photographer dies a lot. The End!

4. Photographer kills butcher only to have train pull up underneath the slaughterhouse and be confronted with about a hundred other butchers all with the same idea. Butchers kill the photographer. Girlfriend cires a lot. Butchers kill her too. The End! 

or 

5.  Turns out there's an underground network of weird demonic vampiric space monkeys living underneath New York City unbeknownst to everyone who Vinnie Jones, instead of feeding them left over meat from his butchering job, feeds them skinny white people (mostly). None of the Demonic Space Monkey plot would be hinted at at all during the movie though of course, so that it's a "surprise". Girlfriend stands there with a "What the fuck kind of fuckery is this?" look on her face a lot. The End! 

At some point in the filmmaking process someone thought "Hey, let's not do any of those regular endings! Let's go for the Space Monkey ending!" Seriously! That's how this movie ended! 80 minutes of tension packed thriller ("packed" might be exaggerating a little) with blood, cool visuals and a little mystique to it followed by 20 minutes of Demonic Space Monkeys turning the audience into broken shells of people. 

In Short: I should have known! Why didn't I think about who made this story? 

  Biggest Positive: Vinnie Jones beating people about the head constantly. 

  Biggest Negative: Yeah... I already went over that I think... 

  Film Website: Midnight Meat Train The Movie 

  Trivia: Vinnie Jones was actually supposed to speak through the whole film but after reading the script he refused.

 

Friday the 13th (2009)

Cast: Amanda Righetti, Jared Padalecki, Danielle Panabaker, Travis Van Winkle, Derek Mears

Synopsis: Watch Friday the 13th parts I - III, mix them together and sprinkle in some Texas Chainsaw Massacre part 2. Take away any logic behind the character Jason Voorhees (i.e. that he's a giant musclebound mass of non-thinking killing machine and not some elaborate trap-setting mechanical engineer who one minute is carefully setting up complex alarm systems, well laid traps and training himself to be a perfect archer but the next minute is retarded enough to believe some random chick is his dead mom that he saw beheaded as a child) and turn it into a choppily editted, poorly directed mash-up mess of a movie and you have the basic premise behind this "remake" of Friday the 13th

Review: What has been seen, cannot be unseen.

In Short: I know if you're reading this that, like me, you can't resist the urge to go see this film but please take my advice, when you go drink a lot of beer and/or bring with you a healthy "shout at screen" attitude (Kudos to the guy who, when told to "shut the fuck up" by a fellow movie-goer, promptly yelled "Ooooh sorry! We might not be able to follow the intricate plot! Oh Shhh! What's Jason going to say?"). If you;re not prepared to see a pile of trash you'll only be sickened to your core

Biggest Positive: Some of the kills, the ones that were done in one continuous shot (e.g. the one under the pier) or at least weren't cut all over the place in the edit were pretty cool

Biggest Negative: The fact that the film exists at all.

Cursed (2005)

Cast: Christina Ricci, Jesse Eisenberg, Joshua Jackson, Judy Greer

Synopsis: A string of bizarre animal attacks ravages Los Angelese with bodies showing up torn in two and ripped to shreds (Don't get too excited though, the film was PG-13 most of the way through). Christina Ricci and her dorky brother, Eisenberg are two siblings who manage to escape the clutches of the animal with only a few scratches but as it turns out (surprise!) that only leaves them CURSED. Soon they're discovering that they're slowly turning into vicious snarling beasts - hilarity ensues! I mean... horror ensues. This isn't Teen Wolf...

Review: I am so very glad that I didn't know this was directed by Wes Craven till after it was over because I feel it may have inadvertantly altered my view of the film in a negative way - not that I have anything against Craven but it might have set my expectations a little higher. As it was though this was a reasonable enough film, entertaining with an easy to follow yet not too boring plot - much like any other werewolf movie ever made. It was PG-13 though, which I fully understand since the whole film seemed much more geared towards a teen audience but I would far rather have seen a lot more gore in a movie with such seemingly savage beasts (A note - in the DVD extras the Film Editor claims that the DVD version I watched is actually rated R and it was only PG-13 in theaters but it's still extremely tame and personally I wouldn't have rated it above PG-13 if I were in the MPAA which I'm not so I'll shut up now). As far as the creature effects go they aren't too bad and even though it's blatantly obvious that the werewolf is nothing but a mechanical costume that is one billion times better than when you watch a film and it's obvious that it's CGI effects - I'd far rather laugh at a silly costume than lame computer effects - and the gore that there is in the film is pretty well done, so hats off there.

"You made me taste my own corn syrup..."

In short, the film was reasonable for what it is but is a far cry from being any sort of definitive or even terribly memorable werewolf movie.

Also it's a bad sign when the special features on the DVD are more entertaining than the film itself... just saying!

In Short:

Biggest Positive: They managed to not do a cheesy "Time of the month" joke!

Biggest Negative: PG-13! Fuck that shit.

- (That's harsh! I want to give this film 3 smiley's but I can't bring myself to do it...)

Cursed's imdb page

Days Of Darkness

More and more movies are proving to me lately that just having zombies in your film does not in any way mean it's not going to be a steaming pile of turd...


Days Of Darkness is exactly the kind of zombie film that makes you want to hurl chunks.
The acting is practically non-existent from the start and the characters are so detestable that there isn't a moment when you don't just want them all to throw themselves over the fence and be eaten alive, preferably five minutes into the film so you don't need to go on watching this fucking nonsense...

Whatever you do with your life, don't make it watching this film. It is an utter waste of time. There are (very few) moments that are reasonable including some semi-decent gore but these are surrounded by an ocean of pointless speeches, explanations and melodrama. I mean it takes about fifteen minutes of really boring "group discussions" for the characters to figure out that the comet (that we see in the opening sequence hurtling towards Earth) is the cause of all this! Fine, the characters didn't see the connection but since the audience is already fully aware there is no need for the characters to spend more than a few seconds figuring this out - it's just plain boring! Have a character who saw the comet crash who can quickly inform everyone - have the characters already figure it out before we join them - have them hear it on an emergency broadcast - SOMETHING! But for God's sake don't make us sit through the tedium of them working it out...
And why is it that the zombie infection infects men's testicles and virgin girls?
Original Idea: Yes
Necessary: No
Better Film Without It: Yes! Yes! Yes!

It did make for some gross moments though which frankly were almost the only thing this film had going for it...
Almost...

You see in the last five minutes of the film (I'm talking about the end of the film, in case it wasn't obvious there is going to be a spoiler or two here) they discover that the reason all the assholes in the picture above weren't infected when the comet struck is because they were all drunk at the time and the infecting parasite hates alcohol filled blood!

Genius!

You see, what this means is all they have to do is get trashed to be able to fight of the zombies and avoid infection!
Unfortunately this all transpires in the last five minutes or so of the film with just enough time for the credits to roll as the only awesome scene in the film goes on: The two main characters swigging at a giant jug of whiskey as they blow away zombies, laughing their asses off and waving shotguns around!

Then the film ends. 90 minutes of shit for 5 seconds of awesome? FAIL!

This film had the potential to be the zombie equivalent of the drunken master! Imagine a zombie film where the only way to survive was to be pissed out your head?

A brilliant idea, sadly lost because someone thought it was a better idea to do the same thing every other low-budget zombie film in history has ever done. Except worse.

I might have given this film 2 out of 5 for gore but I'm giving it one because it took a good idea and fucked it in the ass.



Days Of Darkness's Website - it has "Kids Can Write" in the url. If this film was written by Kindergartners then I applaud them and it would totally explain it's existence.

Sick Girl

Another installment in the "Masters Of Horror" TV Series...


If you're not familiar with the "Masters of Horror" TV Series then let me give you a brief summary. Basically it's a series of one hour long programs created by directors who typically make horror movies for the big screen, when they create these episodes they typically either:

a) Use it as an excuse to just show a bunch of tits for an hour (It's on HBO)

b) Create some sub-standard story that they obviously wanted to make but knew they didn't want to waste their good time making a full movie out of it

or very rarely...

c) Correctly use the format their given to tell a wonderful short story... this hardly ever happens

Now, as I was perusing through the plot summary's of some of the episodes I hadn't seen yet I saw this one and noted that it was directed by someone I had never heard of (This is supposed to be Masters of horror, let's not forget), involved a "lesbian tryst" and was about some tropical insect getting loose.
This to me meant that it was probably going to be one whole hour of topless lesbians making out while a large unrealistic looking prop spider stalks them slowly while using all sorts of Freudian symbolism and gratuitous lesbian orgy shots. This may not sound at all bad for some of you but when I watch a horror film that's not what I'm looking for so I continuously skipped past Sick Girl and watched some other episodes and a few regrettably shitty movies before finally saying "Well... I guess it's time to endure..." and starting up Sick Girl by Lucky McKee

Thankfully (dum dum dum!) I was entirely wrong about this episode and while there are moments of lesbian boobage and there is a particularly odd looking bug the piece overall was a well-acted, well-written and superbly directed hour. It isn't often we see lesbians in horror films (or possibly most any films) be anything but sassy boring sluts but in Sick Girl the pair are as awkward and fumbling as any straight couple you might expect to see in any Wes Anderson film (I dunno whether comparisons to Wes Anderson films are good to you but they are to me, so that was a compliment) and it seems to me from watching this that Lucky McKee, on writing this, seemed to do what I think is wise in making a horror film that actually stands out, by thinking about the horror plot second and concentrating for the most part on the characters who were all well written and likable. To me that just makes for a story that you actually want to follow rather than just some movie where a bunch of teenagers endlessly run at a guy with a chainsaw to see who can die in the most ridiculous way... fun though that is, it definitely makes for a more lasting greatness if the film is well written.

Which Sick Girl was!

I'm going to give this 4/5 but it might just be because I was expecting a pile of trash when I started watching it. Maybe if I watched it expecting it to be great, as you might now if you haven't already seen it, it would get a more average score but rest assured it's worth checking out!

Isolation (2005)

Think "Black Sheep without the comic element".
In spite of this film involving, essentially, killer cows do not be fooled into thinking this might in some way be a humorous horror-comedy like Black Sheep was. Thankfully the back cover to the film tells you nothing of killer cows or people slipping into piles of shit that might make you think the film had some slapstick moments so I wasn't expecting anything funny but after reading this review and hearing about it you might be, in which case - mission accomplished!

Seriously though, this film is pretty good in a gruesome kind of way... the plot is fairly sub-standard - genetic experiments gone wrong - but the film makes up for it by having a fair amount of grizzly gore (Very little of it inflicted on humans though, I'm afraid). Before seeing this film I never thought I'd see so many people squash fetus' with the butts of guns, crawl through, fall in, wade through and fall into piles of cow shit constantly. I feel like this film wins some sort of record for "Most amount of cow shit used on a film".

I hope it was all real cow shit. That would make the film seem just that much more enjoyable.

Anyway, we got this film from the Previously Viewed Bin at the Video King for like $3, along with a pile of other horror films we've never heard of and this one has at least proved (Not that this needed proving to me) that just because you've never heard of a film doesn't mean it isn't worth watching. I somehow doubt all the films we bought are going to be as watchable though so maybe we started out with the one that's going to make all the others seem like absolute piles of turd by comparison... we'll see...

Here's a trailer:

IMdB page for Isolation

Do You Like Hitchcock?

Yes, yes I do.

This is probably the best scene in the movie:

Prom Night (1980)

What is it that all major horror films are lacking?
One thing that you just know deep inside each and every one of them should have had.
A single film element that would have spanned all the horror franchises into longer lasting, epic, billion dollar movies.
Dance offs!

After seeing Prom Night I can safely say that no slasher flick should be complete without an old fashioned test of power via the medium of dance.
And Jamie Lee Curtis was involved? That only makes me realize that John Carpenter doesn't have the eye for talent that we may have inadvertently attributed him with. Why was there no dance competition with Michael Myers at the end of Halloween?
Epic fail, Mr. Carpenter.
Epic.
Fail.

And what's Activia's deal?
With a few simple convincing boogie steps, Jamie Lee could have us all replenishing ourselves with vomit-like substances from dawn till dusk.


Me: What's that Jamie Lee? You want me to take the Activia challenge? No thanks, I don't really like yogurt things and besides I don't really know that feeling 'irregular' actually means anything and it's probably just a ploy to get me to think I need your product.

Jamie Lee: *breaks out into disco fever*

Me: *buys ten years worth of Activia*


The only thing that could have possibly made the dance-offs better is if somehow a ninja were involved, but unfortunately we all know that could never happ... HOLY SHIT The bad guy's a ninja???

I speak the truth. A motherfucking, full fledged ninja (kind of)!! Well, he looks like one and he jumps around like one and yes, the final battle with the ninja-like evil doer is on the dance floor as the disco ball revolves.

So why haven't you seen this film?

You have? Great.



Additionally, Slick is the coolest character I have seen in any film ever.