What this…. A Mansion?
Posted by Chris in Video Games on January 19th, 2012
No, its not a Mansion, nor is Capcom interested in being “the master of unlocking,” the next great survival horror title, proven by the arrival of Resident Evil 6′s announcement trailer that broadcasts the fact that we’re going to have another high flying forced-Co-op action title. However, after this franchise alienated half its fan base by tossing out RE’s signature atmospheric adventure/Survival horror genre and, with it, its classic foot soldiers, the shambling Romero-esk, corpses; RE 6′s trailer seems to, at very least, promise the revival of the latter. While no one will mourn for the loss of the clearly racially offensive retarded AI drones that replaced the living dead for the past two games, This new title is sure to continue to polarize fans on whether or not RE should be action oriented or not. Either way, the announcement comes with a release date, 11/20/2012 and a lengthy trailer that you can check out Here.
Juan of the Dead’ May deserve a second look
When the first teaser of this obviously pilfered-titled piece hit the net over a year ago I was skeptical on the very basis of its shameless reference to the Pegg/Wright masterpiece. A very sparse teaser that seemed to want to bring a Ghostbusters style send up to the Zombie genre didn’t really help matters either. However, after very successful film festival run and a new full length trailer, I decided that the matter was worth at very least another google search.
What I found was very well done, well linked up, and professional looking website that included a new full length trailer, which left me thinking that this piece could have its own original brand of charm and humor. Aside from that, Zombie films tend to be an excellent vessel for sub-texts and with a country that’s been a political nightmare for the better part of half-a-century I expect this movie to bring a boatload of a new brand of social commentary to world audiences. Perhaps, more important than anything is the novelty of a Cuban movie hitting the states.
Even though no release date has been given, Report of this movie sailing across the to US here in the states have surfaced. In the mean time, I recommend everyone give this one a chance despite the lack luster, rip-off title.
Alien 0? Tweenlight 4-1 and K.Smith’s attempt at Horror.
Since its been few months since either of us have had the time or drive to type anything short of an Amazon search query, I thought I’d take a look back at what we’ve missed.
Prometheus…After a bunch of comic-booky garbage, popularly known as the AVP films, Alien’s orginal director Ridley Scott returns to the franchise with a new vision that ambiguously holds the title of prequel, in the sense of an origin story, to the once beloved Sigourney Weaver space opera. Scott, and others involved with the project, have provided conflicting reports as to how much Prometheus will actually tie into the franchise, but the inspiration seemed to be to tell the story of the “Space Jockey” and his derelict space vessel where the alien was initially encountered in the first film.
However, recent interviews with Scott provided further confusion as he played down any connection with the Alien franchise saying that, “the keen fan will recognize strands of Alien‘s DNA,” but basically seems to suggest that it will have little to do with his signature acid blooded beasts. Despite all that noise, the marketing department seemed to not hesitate to use the classic slow forming ALIEN-style font in the trailer. Also, anyone who has 70 seconds to spare to watch the teaser might notice a few other familiar sights: people in Cryo-chambers, Giger style architecture, diseased crew members, and even the Space Jockey’s ship itself. I wonder if we’ll all be surprised if someone is secretly an android.
Even if it has as little to do with the sci-fi giant as Ridley seems to want everyone to believe, how can you go wrong with the guy that directed Alien, Blade Runner, and that oh so Witty 1984 Apple Macintosh Computer Superbowl ad.
Check out the trailer for yourself Here
Twilight Breaking Dawn Part 1… Yeah, I saw it. And as to be expected they dragged out a lot of the film’s teeny romantic aspects, especially the wedding and honeymoon, which droned on for a grueling while, but I must say that many aspects were done with a great deal more skill and grace than I would have expected. A perfectly controlled hyperbolic bloodbath dream sequence paved the way for a darker film waiting to emerge, and as the tone soured the illustration of Bella Swan’s “sickness” was executed with a convincing transformation to an emaciated body usually reserved for Holocaust victims. Unfortunately, one of the most painful exceptions to the rule was the presentation of the wolf-telepathy between Jacob and his pack which looked like a drunken argument between angry muppets after a long night of Kermit’s Green Jager shots.
Objectively, I would say the film was well done and probably a welcome entry for its fan base, albeit as hokey as usual.
Red State… I heard Jay and Silent Bob Fight God Nuts was the original title, but didn’t have quite the same ring. After seeing Smith’s fad-style of direction go out of favor and his originality wavier with it, I had been skeptical of Kevin’s Smith ability to direct anything well anymore let alone horror. However, Red State had some merit to it . The plot follows three exaggerations of high school boys that decide they should all go do the same chick that they met on the internet at once. (Cause we all knew lots of straight Teen boys that would be cool with a Pseudo-homosexual experience for no good reason in the confines of the most judgmental age bracket.) Regardless , and unfortunately for them, the whole setup happens to be a ploy by an extremist church to kidnap the three of them and execute them in their church for being sexually unwholesome, I guess.
Enter-Abin Cooper…an interesting mix of bible-literalist, radical extremist, and cliche all wrapped into one. While Smith does a good job of creating tension with one of the boys locked in cage, watching as Abin and his congregation mock and murder a homosexual man they’ve captured, every character in the room is pretty cookie cutter bible nut. In all fairness, though, the piece is hardly intended as a character study.
Shortly after things are looking bleak for the ill-fated teens, the film shifts POV to John Goodman’s character, Joseph Keenan, an ATF agent that’s prepped for the audience as a red blooded typical American from the second he rolls out of bed and onto the screen. His cigarette smoking and coffee drinking self receives a call from his high ranking government superior while his wife cooks him a hardy breakfast of eggs and processed ham. We soon learn that ATF has had their ever-watching eye on Abin’s cult for some time, and they want Goodman to perform a raid on their church. Despite Goodman’s warnings and concerns that ATF’s track record is a little tainted in such operations his superiors force him to mobilize a team to surround the church.
The rest of the movie carries out as you would expect: all hell breaks loose in a manner that heavy handedly criticizes events like the Waco assault. As the ATF starts killing Abin’s followers more brutally than this film attempts subtlety, the remaining hostages dwindle away and the movie works its way to a deus ex machina ending that’s sort of clever but sort of just pulled out of someone’s ass also. I guess Smith never heard of Chekhov’s gun or maybe it was just out of bullets.
Most offensive is the outro, where Goodman has to debrief with two high ranking government officials that make over the top “hot button issues” jokes about terrorism and how they can subvert due process because they’re the government. (PATRIOT ACT Blah Blah TERRIORISM Blah blah ENTER YOUR FAVORITE ANTI-USA BUZZWORD HERE.) Smith myswell have given them black handle bar mustaches to twirl while they bellow out deep laughs. However, Goodman shuts them up by rambling off childlike dog metaphors in a manner eerily similar to the one-speech-a-movie Silent Bob used to give. Curious.
Even though I sound like I hated it, Smith does pull off suspense, drama, and discomfort at a level that I enjoyed, but subtlety is not his forte. While the film’s commentary is a bit BIT too TOO much, I agree with most of what he trying to say. The theme that any extreme leads to evil is a timeless and good subject, especially when these acts are perpetrated by those in power, its just when you approach it with the skillful tact and subtlety of Donkey Kong tossing a barrel the message loses a smidgen of power, But I guess in a movie where you’re expected to believe that anyone could shoot at John Goodman from an elevated position less than 100 yards away and miss, you need to suspend disbelief a little.
Final thoughts…honestly that’s really all I’ve had time to watch on the horror front these days…If you feel like you were cheated a Paranormal Activity 3 review then it probably would have went like this.
Matt: “It’s the best thing ever”
Chris: “It’s the worst movie ever “
Short Film Released From Trick ‘R Treat Director
Posted by Matt in Halloween, New Releases, Videos on October 13th, 2011
Yeah, I know we haven’t done anything on this site forever. We’ve been busy/lazy, blah blah blah blah. Well here’s something that I can post that requires almost no effort on my part, so I can continue on my with my blatant disregard for our 6 readers.
Director Michael Dougherty, the man behind 2007′s Trick ‘R Treat, has released a quick two-minute video for FearNet that briefly features Sam, the evil doll/ghoul from the film. It rides the line between adorable and morbid quite well and definitely makes me want to watch Trick ‘R Treat again. If you haven’t seen it, do yourself a favor and check it out (along with this new clip). It’s something to hold you over until Trick ‘R Treat 2, which is still in the works.
The GodMonster of Indian Flats
Once in a brief while a movie comes along that is so ungodly terrible that it’s wonderful. How I could have missed such a classic my entire life is beyond me, but somehow The Godmonster of Indian Flats has slipped under the radar since its release in 1973. Operating on level of hokiness and lack of logic that Mystery Science Theater (shocking they never covered it) would have a wet dream about, the movie is supposed to follow the story of a mutated sheep that runs amuck in a midwest town that prides itself on its traditional appearance and tourist-trap mock old west setting. Not the case, the overgrown sheep monster has less than 10% of the actual narrative . So what fills up the rest? Nothing, but the most random bunch of events anyone has ever squeezed into a film.
The bulk of the narrative concerns itself with an African American named Barnstable that has been sent as an emissary from a billionaire employee to buy the town. While the mayor refuses Barnstable’s offers he still insists that he enjoy their hospitality, which involves taverns, a whore house, and an old-west parade complete with shooting range. However, the whole event turns out to be a giant charade to convince Barnstable that one of his stray bullets has killed the Sheriff’s German Shepard.
In order to further discredit Barnstable, the sheriff holds a black-tie church funeral for the dog, and the entire town turns out. While this is going on we have the “main plot” of a drifter named Eddie coming into town and falling in love with the local professor assistant, Mariposa, while her employer experiments with his imprisoned mutated lamb. Eddie and Mariposa perform typical youthful hi-jinx as the professor plays with bad sound effects, Tesla coils, and what ever equipment could be rented from the last Frankenstein set.
Meanwhile, Barnstable, has taken to trying to go to door to door to buy out the land leases from the locals, but is falling on hard times due to his unpopularity from the fallout of the fake slain dog, that we learn has just played dead and is doing fine in Carolina, where the sheriff shipped him off to. Since Barnstable refuses to leave and starts spending his time consorting with the whore’s house’s local madame, Alta, the mayor sends his evil henceman, Philip Mal Dove, that lures Barnstable back to his apartment with the promise of friendly drinks. When the two men settle in with cocktails, Maldove laments about his ignorance to big-city life, experimental bi-sexuality, and all other manner of things that Barnstable must have seen in his time in the big apple. Then Maldove assaults him, shoots himself with his own gun, and frames Barnstable for the crime. I guess most people like to break the ice with Bi-sexuality discussions before they try to frame you for attempted murder.
Back at the ranch, we have more crappy sound effects, more Telsa coils, and more footage of the gimpy, hunchbacked, mutant lamb. Barnstable’s, unfortunately, isn’t having any fun with science, as his false imprisonment is just another clever rouge to eliminate him The Sheriff sits idle with mouth fulls of steak and peas as the film cranks up the racial tension dial by marching a lynch mob into the jail to put Barnstable in the noose.
With some help from Alta, Barnstable is spared from execution, and the friendly neighborhood madame takes him to the nutty Professor for asylum. While Prof. Clemens initially offers his aid he folds like a house of cards the moment the tear gas brigade rolls in to claim their prisoner. Unfortunately, the commotion upsets the monster sheep who escapes containment.
Mariposa tries to lure the sheep back by doing a bizarre pixie dance across the screen for no good reason while Eddie chases after her screaming her name about a dozen times. However nothing works and the RAMPAGE of the GODMONSTER begins, which consists of him blowing up one gas stations where no one gets injured and scaring some school children away from their picnic. Then it goes down to lasso squad of drunken cowboys.
If you’re not confused yet, congratulations, but the ending should put you over the top. We cut back to the mayor who is riding in a limousine with Barnstable, who he has released, and informed that he has sold the land to his employer on his own terms. In short, I was going to do what you wanted but first we had to lynch you, beat you several times, throw you into a jail cell, and make you think you killed a dog. With that awkward conversation out of the way, we cut to gathering in the town square where the mayor has screwed over the Professor and has stolen the giant sheep to boost his tourism and then rants about how the railroad tracks will now be paved with gold and unveils the creature in a cage. What follows is beyond describe.
To put it simply, the crowd, without precedent, starts a riot–as signified by the same recycled shot of people running down a hill–and: random gunslingers show up and kill Philip Maldove, stuff blows up, the monster is disintegrated, and the mayor keeps screaming and laughing like a madman, “I beat you, Barnstable!” The end of a classic, for sure.
While I apologize for the lack of a spoiler alert, the real joy of this film is experiencing it and realizing that someone spent over 130,000 (of 1970s money) to make this abomination. And its not just that the acting is awful or the creature looks like a mix between Quasimodo and Sherry Lewis’s worst nightmare it’s the fact that there is absolutely no logic to the progression of images that litter the screen. At least if the movie had a little more to do with the monster than I could understand the title and maybe appreciate it as a hokey old creature feature, but it doesn’t.
The driving force of the narrative is the underlining racism and militantly conservative nature of those in power. While the aftermath of the riot results in a dead monster sheep the audience is shown smoking rising from his burning body that drifts on the wind to a flock of sheep who inhale it. Playing sinister music, and implications of more monsters means nothing. The monster had no effect on the events that destroyed the town,…perhaps it came to show us that we were the real monsters? Or it’s probably just crap.
Dead Time Stories Vol.1
Posted by Chris in Movies, New Releases, Reviews, Vampires on July 29th, 2011
Well, Romero’s latest project, Dead Time Stories Vol. 1 has recently hit the VOD market, and it doesn’t exactly have me dying for Vol.2. For the most part, Romero has has left the direction up to Savini, et al, but his MO kind wafts from each vignette, and perhaps its just the segmented short films format that reminds me of Creepshow, however parallels to Romeros other fiction keep surfacing like old zombie hands.
The initial “Really?”-moment that has the piece off and running like a three legged horse is Romero establishing himself as the Crypt Keeper-esque narrator, which ends up turning out like someone’s pedophile Uncle Chester trying to act like a friendly harmless adult. While most fans that know Romero will realize that George is just being George and isn’t really trying to act it’s still too hokey to watch. The segments themselves have an interesting off-beat style, but most of the stories and characters are pretty forgettable. While I don’t think I’ll ever forget Steven King’s portrayal of the newly “fertile” hick named Jordy Verill, the cockroach plagued Entomophobic Upson Pratt, or Adrian Barbeau’s Shrewish “Billy” I couldn’t name a single character in any of the “Deadtime” stories I just watched yesterday.
With that said, the three segments do all have some redeeming quality. The opener is about a determined woman trying to discover the fate of her husband in a jungle with hostile natives, which has an interesting twist on the fate of the narrator, but is peppered with too much cartoonish gore. Its follow-up has the creepiest portrayal of a mermaid since Daryl Hanna got cosmetic surgery, however the tone is a little too reminiscent of Creepshow’s “Something to Tide You Over” vignette. Then again, how many ways can vengeance from the sea be pulled off? The final piece is a vampire tale directed by Savini that reminded me of Romero’s old vampire tale Martin, but maintained its own unique dark direction and utilized it setting, a turn of the century peasantry naivety, to execute its narrative seamlessly.
Perhaps I’m doing Deadtime Stories Volume 1 an injustice by comparing it to Creepshow, which paired King and Romero both in the prime of their careers, but on its own merit it does have seem to be missing something. Still, the tales are enjoyable for what they are if you’re in the mood for this format. Or if you need a good laugh a you can just watch the transition segments when Romero does his best work as the over the top narrator. Either way, it’s not a terrible watch. Let’s call it a B- and hope for Vol 2 to wow us.
Walking Dead Season 2 Trailer
Season two of The Walking Dead has been slated for October 16th, which is much too far away for my tastes, but should put us all in the Halloween spirit when it finally rolls around (as long as they don’t decide to push it back to Halloween night as they did last year). However, those of us (Like me) that have been dying for an appetizer can watch the quite lengthy Trailer below. While the trailer doesn’t offer too much in the way of hope for the comic book readers that the series will adapt more of their favorite characters (Michonne anyone???), we do see Rick carrying his boy towards a farm with a man and young girl waiting on the porch. Perhaps the Greene farm? Either way it looks awesome, check it out?
Paranormal Activity 3 (Or, Ways To Further Annoy My Coauthor)
Posted by Matt in New Releases, Trailers on July 25th, 2011
I was just playing internet catch up after 8 days of vacation and I stumbled upon the trailer for Paranormal Activity 3 which is set to be released in October. Though my esteemed coauthor (along with millions of others) has not enjoyed these films thus far, I’m on the other side of the fence having thought the first was brilliantly executed and genuinely frightening. The second film was less enjoyable as it repeated many of the same scares from its predecessor but I still enjoyed it.
Aside from those who don’t at all enjoy found-footage horror, I think most opinions about the Paranormal Activity films are largely influenced by the theater experience you have while watching them. Mainly, the number of rude assholes in the theater with you using their cell phones, talking, or otherwise destroying the tense atmosphere of these movies. During my viewing of Paranormal Activity 2, I had one woman behind me that couldn’t stop saying “awww shit, son!” Over my other shoulder were four teens chatting incessantly. So, it makes sense that I didn’t enjoy it as much as the first one.
All this aside, the trailer for the latest entry in the series indicates that it’s partly a prequel explaining how Katie and her family came to be haunted by the demon. It utilizes old family footage shot by her father to show that strange things were happening all the way back in 1988. I can’t help it – I want to see it already. Even just the trailer makes me tense in a way that the vast majority of horror movies can’t come close to. Perhaps it’s my mind wanting to relive the fear I experience from the first film, but I’m all in for this one too. Maybe this time I’ll catch a showing early in the day to minimize the asshole to human ratio. Check out the trailer and tell me that the mirror image isn’t creepy….come on.
Insidious Review
Posted by Chris in Horror, New Releases, Reviews, Trash on July 22nd, 2011
Horror is a genre that I love passionately and despise fervently on a daily basis. What I hate the most about this industry, at least this week, is when another plastic and unimaginative horror film comes out and they load the TV spots up with all these comparative statements to brilliant, 70’s era, genre-creating titles. “Scariest Film since the Exorcist. Most Terrifying since Poltergeist”. These quotes, of course, refer to Insidious, which just reared its ugly head onto the home market last Tuesday.
Why do I hate it, you may ask? One, it isn’t even as scary as the sum of all of Exorcist and Poltergeist’s bad sequels let alone the originals. While the films has some creepy images and a few good jump moments, the sad fact remains that the trailer showcased every single one of them. The rest of the film is tonally awkward, badly paced, and outright goofy in a way that borders on SyFy original quality.
Insidious’s attempt at originality functions on a two act play style. Act one follows the Lamberts, Josh and Rene, a thirty-something couple that have just moved their family into a new home, and all is well until their oldest son, Dalton, falls into an unexplainable comma. With doctors baffled, Dalton returns home to visiting nurse care, and the family finds itself in a typical format of a haunted house flick: stuff moves around, bloody hand prints appear, and a ghostly figure that looks like some loser that used to be a roadie for King Diamond materializes to cause havoc.
Rene convinces Josh to move, and guess what, the same stuff starts happening in the new house. So, they decide to call in some help to figure out why and help comes in the form of two stereotypically humorous ghost hunters who use modified children’s View Masters to stumble upon one of the film’s only creepy scenes, two undead girls that appear in Overlook Hotel fashion, but with unnerving Cheshire Cat smiles. Don’t worry if you blinked and missed it, because director James Wan will try to pull this stunt about a dozen more times before the movie is out, until it so redundantly unscary that I wanted to cry.
Reload Elise! Top Left! Watch out for that Scary Eyeball. Wait Wrong Image
Anyway, after that bit, the ghost hunters call in their boss, Elise, who is some kind of psychic and decides to have a séance while wearing a gas mask. While, apparently, this is based in fact for people with ESP to heighten their skills through sensory deprivation, the real reason, which Wan told Fangoria, was just because he wanted to have a different feel to the overused séance scene. Well, different he got. I can’t dispute that, but it also looks goofier than ID-Software’s Rise of the Triad video game in 94’ when they did Gas Mask View. Everyone that’s put off by this scene better crawl into their own gasmasks because its only going to stink worse from here as Insidious takes a turn for the Looney Toons style.
After chaos at the séance ensues, and I’m surprised Taz doesn’t spin out of the table, the group finally comes up with a plan. In short, there’s a bunch of half-assed repressed backstory about Josh’s past, but all you need to know is that he could Astral-project his soul as a child and now his kid Dalton took up the hobby and got stuck in a place called “The Further.” While Elsie’s explanation is too lengthy to even paraphrase here, just think of that episode of the Twilight Zone where that little girl falls through a dimensional hole in the wall and the dog has to get her, except add a house, and a bunch of those Cheshire Cat smiling ghost and poof you’re there.
The reason for all of this is that Dalton’s travels have left his living body as an empty vessel, prime real estate for every ghost, dead King Diamond roadie, and demon that looks like an anorexic Raiders fan in a five dimension radius. So, Josh has to astral-project once again to find his son in that creepy of all worlds, “The Further.”
So he wades through a bunch of fog machine puffs, retro 50’s families doing that creepy Cheshire Cat smile, yet again, and has to fight the King Diamond roadie who he takes out with Lord Raiden’s across-the-screen, face-first dive move. (Yes, it looks that bad). Finally, he finds his son chained up in the demon’s liar. What is the demon doing you may ask? Why he’s sharping his claws while listening to Tiny Tim’s “Tip-Toe Through the Tulips.” Immediately after, the demon presses his sharpened-claw-silhouette against the stain glass window that separates them and there’s a sound spike. Really, this scene is supposed to be tense. I’m sorry but there’s no more being afraid of this guy. (Finally, I understand Why Paranormal Activity didn’t show their demons, because demons do goofy unscary stuff like listen to Tiny Tim with their down time).
With all the tension being flushed down the toilet, the father and son try to escape “The Further,” and Wan tries revive tension with some sort Night of the Living Dead all-ghosts-storm-“realworld”-house-scene, which makes no bloody sense because up until now the ghost could pass through walls but now barricading doors seems to work. The demon chases the kid with a bunch of bad clichés: hand from under the bed and a fast wall crawl, but we don’t care cause he’s about as scary as one of the monsters on Sesame Street by this point, and at last the climax comes to end.
Insidious, of course, has to use the formulaic last scare, the good guys didn’t really win, ending that is so obviously coming that Steve Wonder could see it. Then it’s over. Watch out Linda Blair and Craig T. Nelson because your classics are going to be forgotten and buried, pushing up “Tuilips” even.
Is Insidious as bad as I’m making it? Probably not, no, but don’t buy into the hype that it can even touch The Exorcist in terms of fright. Instead, it’s purposely absurd and relies too heavily on homage with slight twists, and it’s worth repeating that every scene that’s eerie is over done until they’re not, and others are just done poorly like the aforementioned Raiden move.
Insidious could be a lot fun, if you like your horror to be just off-keel enough to be creepy, and as long as you don’t go in expecting it to come near its TV spot’s claims. It’s going to take something very special to rival Regan’s spinning head, and Insidious just ain’t it.
Handful of Bones: Mid-Summer Edition Part 2
Here we go again, Let’s see what Horror and Horribles I’ve consumed this week.
Rule of Three: is Eric Shapiro‘s sad attempt at putting together a film Noir. Most of the action takes place in a hotel room and the scenes shift in time between the before, after, and during that results in the disappearance of a man’s daughter. In the “After” the father is combing the hotel room for some clue and receives a note that someone is going to meet him at three at the hotel to give him closure about his lost little girl. While in the “during,” his idiotic daughter has decided that she wants to have a three-some with his boyfriend and another girl, but wants the girl to be an intellectual equal, because you want the girl you’re having a ranchy ménage à trois in a seedy hotel to be able to quote Chaucer in correct middle English, I guess. Then we have the “before” where the previous renters of the room, a lowlife and a dealer, are arguing over the cost of Ruffies so the lowlife can rape one of his married female friends. If these vignettes melded together with the ease of a Four Rooms or Pulp Fiction I would look past the usual short comings of a low-budget project but the believability is lacking at every turn.
Yes, the acting sub-par, but that’s not biggest problem. Yes, the logical progression of events barely connect or make sense, but THAT’s not the biggest problem. What really sinks this film is that Eric Shapiro apparently never heard of Chekhov’s gun, the idea that if you’re going to have a gun fire in the last act it has to been seen on the mantle in the first act. In short, pulling a twist out of your ass at the last second doesn’t work in well written drama, which is how Shapiro tries to end this train wreck. The audience is walloped in the final scene with this “da-Da-DA” moment, that is unveiled without any precedence. Hopefully, the next Shapiro wants to take a stab at Film Noir he’ll take Chekhov’s gun off the mantle…and then shoot himself with it.
Blood Creek: is a bizarre mix of Zombie Nazi horror and Demon Knight. An estranged brother that has been missing for two years pops back up with a Jesus beard and the scourging at the pillar wounds on his back to match. He convinces his brother to go and shotgun down the family of four that have held him hostage for the past two years. So, they tie up the women and mortally wound the men,but then “the real” villain is unveiled; A super-zombie Nazi that can make other dead tissue into a super zombies, but the only thing he can’t do is walk past red triangles that the families have painted on the house. Sooo, the captors turned hostages have to team up with the hostages turned captors to hole up in the house and find a way to defeat the creature.
From here, we have a standoff reminiscent of the aforementioned Billy Zane classic, but lacking the personality of Zane’s demon cowboy. Instead, we get a self righteous Nazi that tries to make political statements to the one brother because he was a Gulf War Vet and somehow that has something to do with the plot? I don’t know. On the brighter side, Zombie horses are in the mix. Awesome, but that’s about as good as its gets. The rest of the movie falls into the typical monster movie format: playing chess with the creature
, discovering its strengths and weakness, establishing dumb-ass complex rules, and finding a way to use the rules and weakness to execute some overly elaborate plan to trick the creature into a scenario that will exact its oblivion, which they do.
It’s not a terrible movie, but just not a very good one either. Enjoying Emma Booth’s odd other-worldly beauty is probably the biggest highlight of Blood Creek. Then again, maybe you like Zombie Horses a whole lot more than me.
Undead or Alive: is a Zombie/Western/Comedy/Romance/Horror movie featuring Chris Kattan as an idiotic love sick cowboy that teams up with a deserter, and an Indian Princess to fight a growing horde of Undead that is sweeping across the west. This premise pretty much says it all, and the movie is exactly what you’d expect. While Chris Kattan is as unfunny as he was on SNL, the movie does have handfuls of dark humor hiding behind every cactus, including Kattan’s partner using his beloved dead horse’s leg as a powder tamp to load a cannon while trying to explain to him that “Frisky” would have wanted to help. Not to mention, an ending that has black humor at its best.
Really, though, this movie is not for Zombie fans as much as its for Kattan fans (I’m sure there’s a few of you sickos out there) as, with the exception of a few scenes, the zombies act more like rotting people than shambling corpses, but otherwise I think the key is not hating Chris Kattan if you want to like this one. 
Isolation: is maybe one of the most bizarre and original horror films I’ve caught in some time. A bit slow at first, Isolation lingers awhile over the matter of a pregnant cow and introducing the four main characters: A farmer named Dan, a vet named Orla, and a couple of young squatters: Mary and Jamie. After a lot of bickering between the four, the baby cow is finally ready to be born in a scene that illustrates more about cattle birth than I’d ever want to see, but after THAT the film takes a turn down Creepy Street.
Dan, while examining the new calf, is bite by it, losing a chunk of his finger. When Orla returns to examine the calf she discovers its dental arcade is jagged and that the cow is deformed, which leads to a grotesquely awful botched euthanization scene that will have animal lovers calling the ASPCA. Once that bit of unpleasantness is out of the way, we cut to the autopsy scene where Orla makes a strange discovery that the calf was already pregnant at birth,and its embryos contain creatures with exoskeletons. When Dan demands to know what’s going on Orla explains that her employer was experimenting with the cattle to create more fertile offspring and another argument ensues, but as they move off-screen the audience remains with the embryos and one starts to twitch.
From here on, the film carries an uncomfortable creepiness and tension that keeps it from descending into the realm of the typical SyFy Monster Movie, hence: no hokey footage of the beast, no over the top formula of how to vanquish it; and, somehow, Isolation succeeds as being a fresh new horror film. Worth a watch, by far.
Fragile: “Ally Mcbeal”, all 80 pounds of her, takes a job as a night nurse in an old hospital and a very cliched ghost story ensues. Not much more to say here. The ghost is seldom creepy. The twist is fairly simple. The quality has made-for-TV written all over it, and the acting is what you expect for a movie whose lead is Calista Flockhart. Nothing special, but at least watchable, which is more than I can say for some of the high budget horror that hits the silver screen these days.
Contact Us
Awards Mean We’re Famous, Right?
