September 24th

Frankenstein (1931) directed by James Whale
We made it through 49 minutes before having to stop.  I thought the 80-year-old Frankenstein might be a tame enough movie to watch with my nearly 4-year-old daughter, but it was just too scary.  She was fine with the brains in the jars and the doctor's experiment, but as soon as Fritz started teasing the monster with the torch, she was done.  I got her to watch a bit more, but every appearance of the monster was scarier than the last.  Wisely, I stopped it right before the monster decides to throw Maria in the lake, leaving it with "see, she's teaching Frankenstein how to be nice and sharing her flowers."  Ah well.  I'm just happy she watched a slow, black & white movie and her only complaint was the scariness.

Seeing my daughter react to Frankenstein got me thinking about the movie in a way I really haven't before.  What is scary in it?  As an adult in the era of Saw 3D, it's difficult to see the film as anything other than quaint.  However, if you've never, ever seen a horror movie before... the monster is something special.  Jack Pierce's makeup is really good, as is Karloff's performance.  There's a reason this particular take on Frankenstein has endured.  If you're unused to seeing such things, I can understand the monster being frightening: a big, lumbering, disfigured guy who seems to only groan or strangle.  But, it's hard to get into that mindset as an adult

Hmm... maybe we'll try to watch Bride of Frankenstein next year.  (7/10)

Tales from the Darkside: "Inside the Closet" (1984) directed by Tom Savini

Finally, an episode that really is from the "darkside."  And, Tom Savini's first directing gig at that.  A college girl rents a room in a professor's house and begins hearing weird noises from a locked closet.  Turns out -- and too bad for her -- it's a hungry little imp-thing in there.  This is a mostly decent episode with a pretty good build of tension.  Unfortunately, the imp-thing just doesn't look good.  In fact, it looks pretty much like a toothy, naked Furby.  The bad puppet pretty much ruins the episode.  I think the problem was that the director was also the head of the SFX department responsible for building the thing.  Instead of cloaking the puppet in shadows to both mask its flaws and make it scarier, he wanted to show it off.  Didn't work out so well...

Fangoria Blood Drive II shorts

We All Fall Down (2005)

The Gibbering Horror of Howard Ghormley (2005)

Means to an End (2005)

Mainstream (2005)

Disposer (2005)

The Journal of Edmond Deyers (2005)

Sawbones (2005)

Working Stiff (2005)

Dark House (2009) directed by Darin Scott

The first Fangoria Frightfest movie of the season and -- surprise, surprise -- the first crappy movie of the season.  Horror has a serious technology problem.  Cellphones, for example, are a huge thorn in horror's side.  It takes much more effort to isolate your characters when you've got to deal with everyone carrying a pocket communicator.  Computers, also, are trouble.  They seem to temp horror screenwriters into ridiculous plot ideas.  In this movie, a haunted house attraction creator somehow has the equivalent of holodeck technology.  Instead of, I don't know, making trillions of dollars licensing this tech to everyone on the planet, he decides to install it in a Victorian house so he can scare people.  Like every holodeck story, the holograms go nuts and start killing people (actually, a ghost haunts the computer and infects it like a computer virus(!). We know this because we're shown a computer screen running the Matrix screensaver with the words "Virus Detected" superimposed on it along with an angry ghost video.  Yeah, really).

There's an attempt at the end of the movie to explain the killings in more natural ways -- the protagonist went nuts and did it herself -- but it doesn't remotely stand up to scrutiny (holograms or no, the other people in the house are going to notice her killing people).  Regardless, I couldn't get past the stupidity of the technology in the movie to enjoy it.  Call it the Exorcist II problem.  (4/10)

Fragile (2005) directed by Jaume Balagueró

I think the vengeful ghost story is my least favorite horror subgenre.  Someone gets wronged and killed, they haunt a place and hurt people, the protagonist takes ninety minutes or so to figure things out, the end: it's the same story over and over.  This one finds Calista Flockhart on the Isle of Wight, taking the night shift as a nurse at a children's hospital.  A nurse who died 50 years ago doesn't want the place shut down, so she starts breaking the legs of the kids and shoving people out of windows.  I'm not sure how this makes much sense, but maybe ghosts don't operate using people logic.

I'll admit the movie is well written and shot and paced.  Flockhart is excellent as Amy, the nurse who figures things out. But, I just didn't care for the story. (6/10)

 

September 23rd

Dollman vs. Demonic Toys (1993) trailer
Monster Brawl (2011) trailer
The Simpsons: "Treehouse of Horror: Bad Dream House" (1990)




The Ward (2010) directed by John Carpenter
I really wanted to like this more than I did.  This is the first new Carpenter movie in a decade, after the awful Ghost of Mars.  I was rooting for one of my all-time favorite directors to come back with a the apocalyptic spirit I loved in The Thing, Prince of Darkness or They Live.  Sadly, The Ward doesn't reach the heights of Carpenter's classics.

Not that this is a bad film.  It's well made and acted.  If you want a tough chick in your horror movie, Zombieland's Amber Heard is the way to go.  Susanna  Burney as Nurse Lundt is the best bitch-nurse since Nurse Ratched.  Carpenter's use of Ghost Alice is absolutely expert.  Until her final appearance, we never get a good look at her entirely.  Carpenter shows us her rotted hands (crawling with under-skin CGI worms, which was actually very effective) as they choke, or we get a glimpse of her face from just the eyes up, or she appears mostly cloaked in shadows behind someone.  The guy knows what he's doing with this stuff.

I think the main problem isn't with Carpenter, but with the script.  It's just not very special.  The twist towards the end isn't terribly surprising or original.  About half of the movie seems to be comprised of Kristen's escape attempts.  Also, the mental institution isn't very scary.  Though it looks vaguely like one of those incredibly creepy Kirkbride buildings (think Session 9), inside it's what I would expect a normal '60s institution to look like.  Sure, they're performing electroshock there, but we still do that today.  Sure, they've got a morgue there, but why wouldn't they?  Sure, they have lobotomy tools in the basement, but it's the '60s and they didn't know any better.

It's an alright film.  I hope it inspires Carpenter to pick up the camera again sooner than later.  And, hey, at least it has a classic Carpenter ending.  It just wouldn't be the same without one of those. (7/10)

Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988) trailer

Die You Zombie Bastards! (2005) trailer

Dinner Date (2008)

Tucker & Dale vs Evil (2010) directed by Eli Craig

Welp, this one's going down as a classic of horror comedy.  That's an easy call to make.  Twenty years from now, people will be asking: "Do you want to watch Tucker & Dale, Shaun of the Dead or Evil Dead 2 tonight?"  Some scenes in this redneck-horror-turned-on-it's-head movie had me crying I was laughing so hard.

Yeah, the romance in the movie is a bit Hollywood predictable.  Yeah, there's a bit of a lull in the fun when the college kids abduct Tucker and the accidental deaths stop for a while.  There's so much other good stuff in the movie, I don't care.

My biggest complaint isn't with the movie, but with the marketing.  If you've watched the trailers, you've seen just about every really funny scene in the movie already.  The scenes -- extended in the movie -- are still funny, but not surprising like they should be.  But, what were they going to do?  They needed to let people know how funny the movie was, and creating a trailer like they did was really effective.  I watched the trailer a year ago and wanted to see it so badly I paid $11 to rent the thing on PSN today.

As much as horror fans may whine -- remakes suck, Twilight sucks, the old school directors have lost their touch -- there are always new classics being created.  Ain't we lucky? (8/10)

An unsettling view from a local hospital room

September 22nd

Manhunter (1986) directed by Michael Mann
Hannibal Lecter (Lecktor?) movie numero uno.  I think I'll try to watch 'em all this Halloween season (I've never seen any of the post-Silence films).  Manhunter's a psychological police procedural rather than the scary serial killer movie I'd normally watch this time of year; it sits far closer to Insomnia than to Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer.

I don't think I've ever noticed how beautifully shot this film is.  Mann composes each frame like a painting, arranging the objects on screen precisely.  His use of color is also excellent: the stark white of Lecktor's prison, the cool blue of Graham's beach house, the muted colors of Dollarhyde's house.  Check it out:

I love Brian Cox as Lecktor.  I may even like him better than Hopkins, but I'll have to re-watch Silence to know for sure.  Though Cox only has probably ten minutes of screentime, he's incredibly memorable.  He comes across as relaxed, unshakable and completely in control despite his imprisonment.  No slouch, either, is Tom Noonan, who's Dollarhyde is a man who can barely function in normal society due to his murderous insanity.

Yeah, it's got a cheezy '80s synth score and maybe the jump cuts during the climax are goofy and perhaps Graham jumping through Dollarhyde's window in dramatic slo-mo doesn't make a whole lot of logical sense, but it's a fine detective movie otherwise. (7/10)

September 21st

Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006) directed by Scott Glosserman
Part mockumentary, part real slasher flick.  Not unlike Scream, it's a winking love letter to slasher fans.  In this film, a documentary crew follows a slasher killer as he meticulously plans his killing spree.  Rather than relying on supernatural powers, slashers are really just good planners in excellent physical condition.  It's an amusing and strangely satisfying way of explaining the more unbelievable aspects of slasher films.  How do they survive being shot?  Bulletproof vests.  How do they make sure the victims flee where they want them to flee?  Months and months of planning.  How do they keep up with the fleeing victims?  Lots of cardio.  Why is there always a final girl left surviving?  The slasher really just wants to make her a better, stronger person.

It's a little bit jarring, and maybe a little disappointing, when the film switches from mockumentary to straight slasher film.  Partially, this means Leslie Vernon transforms from an engaging psychopath into a silent killer.  Nathan Baesel does such a great job with the role, it's sad to see him don the mask and stop talking to the documentary crew.  However, it's a necessary part of the movie.  We need to see everything Leslie's been explaining put into action to make sense of it all.  We also need to see that even if you already know what his plan is, changing it in the confusion of the night might not be so easy.  Now I kind of feel bad for all of the times I've yelled at the screen because the victims in a slasher film were making poor choices.

I'm not sure why it took me five years to get around to seeing this, but a nice treat for day two of Halloween.  (8/10)

Tales from the Darkside: "Mookie and Pookie" (1984) directed by Timna Ranon
There's an entire subgenre of movies and TV episodes on this subject: you're loved one isn't really dead... he's in the computer now!  It's a ridiculous idea now and it's even worse in a 27-year-old show featuring what looks like a 286.  Now, if Mookie had transferred himself into his computer and met Tron in there, maybe I'd like the episode a bit more.  As it is, it's a pointless bit of fluff that's more of a rejected Twilight Zone script that anything with a "darkside" to it.


Tales from the Darkside: "Slippage" (1984) directed by Michael Gornick
The always entertaining David Patrick Kelly plays a man who is so unimportant, the universe decides to slowly erase him from existence one day.  Or, maybe, he realizes his existence impedes the happiness of those around him and subconsciously decides to do a George Bailey (It's a Wonderful Life being directly mentioned in the show).  I don't know.  There's not much to this episode; it's more like the third act of a bigger story.

September 20th

Dead & Buried (1981) directed by Gary Sherman
My favorite part of these annual horror marathons is finding good movies I've overlooked.  Sadly, this is a rare occurrence.  Not only have I already seen a great many horror movies in my time, but -- let's be honest -- the awesome-to-wretched ratio for the genre ain't that great. Dead & Buried is an early '80s gem with a completely unique take on the zombie genre.  It's so unique, I didn't even realize I was watching a zombie movie until about the halfway point.

I was sold on the movie right from the beginning sequence.  The film starts with a photographer meeting a pretty girl on a beach in New England.  Prompted by the girl, they exchange increasingly flirty banter until it looks like the photographer is about to get lucky.  Just as he moves in for a kiss, a group of the townsfolk -- including the girl -- descend on him in a flurry violence.  The violence comes absolutely out of nowhere and the contrast between the amorous flirting and the surprisingly brutal beating is shocking.

Coming from the writing team behind Alien, I guess I shouldn't be surprised to find the story very well constructed.  James Farentino as Sheriff Gillis attempts to unravel the mystery behind a spate of killings in his small town.  As he gets deeper into the case, he keeps unburying information that, perhaps, he'd rather not know; about the fellow his hit with his car, about his wife, about the town mortician and about himself.  As his world falls apart, so does he mentally and physically.

Farentino's amazing performance -- watch his agony as he complies with his wife's request to bury her -- a great script and a unique premise overcome a few bad SFX and music cues to make an excellent start to my Halloween celebration. (8/10)

Fangoria Blood Drive shorts

Hitch (2004)

A Man and His Finger (2004)

Inside (2004)

Shadows of the Dead (2004)

Mr. Eryams (2004)

Disturbances (2004)

Song of the Dead (2004)

Six Weeks of Halloween 2011

Frank's Lament

September 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 October 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

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Movies Watched		Episodes Watched
Antfarm Dickhole (2011) Bad Biology (2008) Basket Case (1982) Basket Case 2 (1990) Basket Case 3 (1992) Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006) Blood Beach (1980) Blood Car (2007) Brain Damage (1988) Cemetery Man (1994) Critters (1986) Dark House (2009) Dead & Buried (1981) Dead Alive (1992) Demons (1985) The Exorcist (1973) Fertile Ground (2011) 51 (2011) Fragile (2005) Frankenhooker (1990) Frankenstein (1931) The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966) Ghoulies (1985) Grimm Love (2006) Halloween (1978) Hannibal (2001) Hannibal Rising (2007) The Haunting (2009) Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988) Hellraiser (1987) Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth (1992) Hellraiser: Bloodline (1996) Hellraiser: Deader (2005) Hellraiser: Hellseeker (2002) Hellraiser: Hellworld (2005) Hellraiser: Inferno (2000) Hellraiser: Revelations (2011) Hunger (2009) Husk (2011) The Innocents (1961) Let Me In (2010) Manhunter (1986) Pig Hunt (2008) The Prowl (2010) Psych:9 (2010) Q (1982) Red Dragon (2002) Red State (2011) Road Kill (2010) Scream of the Banshee (2011) Seconds Apart (2011) The Silence of the Lambs (1991) Spirits of the Dead: "Toby Dammit" (1968) Stag Night (2008) Stake Land (2010) The Task (2010) The Tomb (2009) Trick 'r Treat (2007) Tucker & Dale vs Evil (2010) The Ward (2010) Willard (1971) You Can't Rent Here Anymore (2010)		Fear Itself: "Skin and Bones" (2008) The Munsters: "Bronco-Bustin' Munster"(1965) The Munsters: "Happy 100th Anniversary" (1965) The Munsters: "Herman's Child Psychology" (1965) The Munsters: "Herman's Happy Valley" (1965) The Munsters: "Herman's Raise" (1965) The Munsters: "Herman, the Master Spy" (1965) The Munsters: "Herman, Coach of the Year" (1965) The Munsters: "Herman Munster, Shutter Bug" (1965) The Munsters: "Hot Rod Herman" (1965) The Munsters: "Lily's Star Boarder" (1965) The Munsters: "Lily Munster - Girl Model" (1965) The Munsters: "Munster the Magnificent" (1965) The Munsters: "Operation Herman" (1965) The Munsters: "Yes, Galen, There Is a Herman" (1965) The Real Ghostbusters: "Halloween II 1/2" (1987) The Simpsons: "Treehouse of Horror XXII" (2011) Tales from the Darkside: "Inside the Closet" (1984) Tales from the Darkside: "Mookie and Pookie" (1984) Tales from the Darkside: "Slippage" (1984) The Walking Dead: "Days Gone By" (2010) The Walking Dead: "Guts" (2010) The Walking Dead: "Tell It to the Frogs" (2010) The Walking Dead: "TS-19" (2010) The Walking Dead: "Vatos" (2010) The Walking Dead: "Wildfire" (2010) The X-Files: "Home" (1996)

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Halloweentime is my favorite six weeks of the year.  The skittering of dead leaves on the ground, the scent of mulled cider cooking on the stove and the appearance of plastic, severed heads at the local grocery store all contribute to a season like no other.

Here, I'll write about the flicks I watch throughout my forty-two day fest.  My goal is to watch at least one movie a day... if not more.  To that end, I've got a metric ton of horror front-loaded in my Netflix queue and more sitting on my shelves and hard drives.

My viewing plans include keeping up with this year's crop of Horrorfest movies, now dubbed the After Dark Originals, and the two new Ghost House Underground offerings.  Likewise, I've got to catch up with last year's Fangoria Frightfest films.  I'm also looking forward to checking out The Ward, Stake Land, I Saw the Devil, and Let Me In.  And, as per tradition, I've got to watch both Trick 'r Treat and the original Halloween.

Outside of the film-watchin', I'll be attending two horror conventions this season.  I love the hell out of these things.  There's nothing quite like being surrounded by hundreds of fellow horror nuts (it's black T-shirts as far as the eye can see).  On October 1st, it's Cinema Wasteland.  There, I need to shake Frank Henenlotter's hand and thank him for the wondrous insanity of Brain Damage. On October 29th, it'll be the first annual Flint Horror Con, where I've got to buy more of Steve Jencks' awesome horror movie poster interpretations.

So, feel free to stop on by from time to time and leave a comment.  And, if you've got movie recommendations, leave those here too.

Let Six Weeks of Halloween IX Begin!

Closed - See You Next Halloween!

Closed

See You Next Halloween!

HorrorHound Weekend was a blast.

October 31st - HALLOWEEN

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October 30th

The traditional bucket of corn syrup.

Saw 3D (2010) directed by Kevin Greutert
Hey, my predications after watching VI weren't too far off, except for the Jill part.  And the dead fetus thing.  I got say that for most of the movie, I was kind of disappointed while watching it.  The main person caught in a trap is yet another guy who pissed off Jigsaw, like the insurance guy in V.  If he weren't dead, I'd warn Jigsaw that people are going to start thinking his lessons are garbage and that he's really just out for revenge.  And I'm still not clear on why Hoffman keeps engineering these things for Jigsaw so long after his death.  I guess he's a sadist and Jigsaw's (presumably) detailed plans make it easy to just do what Jigsaw wanted for the time being.

Speaking of, Jigsaw is relegated to just three cameos in this film: two in flashbacks and one on video.  Sure, that man is dead, but he's still my favorite character (or only character I like, really) in the series.  Though I know full-well there's no room for more Jigsaw backstory, it would've been nice if Tobin Bell had gotten more screen time somehow.

I do like the ending of the movie.  I'm reading on messageboards that the Saw fans are pissed off for a variety of reasons, but I think it brings things full circle in a satisfying way.  I don't even mind that, yet again, they've found a way to shove one more Jigsaw accomplice into the background of all of the previous movies.  But, this time, it really does make sense.  I was wondering during the last movie how Hoffman was able to surgically implant a key into the insurance guy's side without, you know, nicking an artery and accidentally mucking up the game.

As for the 3D: this and Avatar are the only modern 3D movies I've seen so far.  I've really got no use for it.  I think it adds very little to a movie.  Though, there were two instances in Saw 3D where the 3D really added to the experience.  In the first, a man is trying to reach for a lever to pull.  In the second, a man is balancing on boards high above the floor.  In 3D, we're allowed to see just how far from the lever and floor these men are, which adds to the tension.  Outside of that, it's just an occasional body part flying towards your face and nothing much else of use.  That, and it always gives me an eyestrain headache.

Individually, I'm not really a huge fan of the Saw movies.  Mostly, I don't care a wit about the characters trapped in the games and later movies feel like they're struggling to think of new things to do.  However, I admire the hell out of the continuity in these seven films.  Whatever I think of the movies themselves, the series is a notable achievement in horror.  We've seen horror series generate unending annual sequels before, but never have they required so much of the viewer.  You really do need to have at least the previous installment fresh in your mind to make sense of the current film (and even better if the entire series is in mind).  A sequel could refer to any part of any number of the previous movies, revealing more about the story and answering dangling questions from years prior.  I love this part of the series: a seven-year-long soap opera for horror geeks. (6/10)




Phantasm II (1988) trailer
Erotic Nights of the Living Dead (1980) trailer
The Simpsons: "Treehouse of Horror IV: The Devil and Homer Simpson" (1993)


Tales from the Crypt: "Well Cooked Hams" (1993) directed by Elliot Silverstein
Stars Billy Zane, in a role that must have convinced the producers to cast him the movie a couple of years later.  He plays a magician who likes to steal tricks from other magicians and who receives a predictable punishment for such acts.  Worth watching just to see Martin Sheen ham it up to 11 in three different roles with three different fake beards.


Igor and the Lunatics (1985) trailer
Frankenpimp (2000) fake trailer
Murder Baby (2010)


Alien (1979) directed by Ridley Scott
For "best sci-fi-horror movie ever" it's either this or The Thing, no question.  Me, I tend towards The Thing, but Alien is no slouch.  I love that it is essentially a monster chasing people around a gothic castle... but in space. Giger's beautiful designs still hold up 31 years later.  The intentional sexual undertones to the creature are as fun to pick apart as they are disturbing (how about this one: the alien's inner mouth becomes erect and leaks clear fluid when it's excited).  The space truckers are all realistically drawn and sound like working-class folks just doing their job. Jerry Goldsmith's score is haunting and perfect. There's not a lot to complain about in this film (the unnecessary Sigourney Weaver buttcrack, probably) as it's near-perfect. (9/10)




Cat in the Brain (1990) trailer
Vampire Wars: Battle for the Universe (2005) trailer
Rob Zombie: "American Witch (animated)" (2006)


Dagon (2001) directed by Stuart Gordon
I love this film unabashedly and I'll never understand why it's not more well-known out there in horror land. I love the contrast between the washed-out blue of Imboca and the bright orange of Paul's Miskatonic sweatshirt.  Visually, we can tell he's a fish out of water, so to speak, right off.  Paul's is one of my favorite horror movie heroes.  What I like is, ignoring the rich investor thing, he's a true everyman.  In the hotel, when he hears the villagers making weird noises and coming towards his room en masse, he still calls out a "can I help you?" when they rattle his doorknob.  It's true: it would be hard to switch gears from what you would do in normal civilization to dropping the civilities and realizing they don't matter when things are strange.  He uses his swiss army knife and cellphone as a pathetic weapons, as they are the only thing he has in his pocket.  He tries and fails to hotwire a car -- I sure as  hell don't know how to do that, either.

For the record: yes, I would live forever with the tentacle-legged woman underwater.  Absolutely. (9/10)

A tree in the house?

October 29th

Altered (2006) directed by Eduardo Sánchez
Rednecks get revenge on their alien abductor.  It sounds silly, but Sánchez turns it into a serious horror movie.  The movie subscribes to the theory that alien abductions are the human equivalent of tranquillizing and tagging bears in the woods.  Unlike bears, though, humans can seek revenge.  After fifteen years of staking out the field where they were abducted, the rednecks finally bag themselves an alien.  They haul it back to the house of a fellow abductee deep in the woods.  The twist: the fellow abductee -- wiser in these matters than his friends -- explains they can't kill the thing.  As we'd put down a dog that bit a person, these critters will scourge the planet if we kill even one of them.  Naturally, the alien gets loose and causes havoc and disease and possession and death.

I liked how we never saw the original abduction of these men; we're just witness to the PTSD fifteen years later.  We have to piece together their trauma and understand how hard it is for them to not torture the alien they've captured.  Not a bad follow-up to Blair Witch for Sánchez.  And, hey, no skaky-cam! (7/10)




Young Frankenstein (1974) directed by Mel Brooks
Never much of a laugh-out-loud movie for me.  It's more one of those comedies that involves a lot of the almost-laugh: the sharp exhale of air out the nostrils that indicates you recognize what is one the screen is amusing, but don't feel the urge to give it a full-on laugh.  It'd probably work better watching it in a group.  That often helps grow the laughs.

Not that I don't like the movie.  I think the characters and the actors who play them are great.  The dialog is witty.  There are plenty of amusing sight-gags to pick up on during multiple viewings.  It's just that, if I feel like a horror comedy, Ghostbusters is gonna make me laugh 10 times harder, is all.

As it is, it's a brilliant, dead-on parody/homage to the Universal horror movies of the 1930s.  So much so, I'd say you're not gonna get much out of the film if you haven't seen Bride of, Son of and the original Frankenstein first.  (7/10)

October 28th

[REC] (2007) directed by Jaume Balagueró & Paco Plaza
Oh man, I had to stop watching this a couple of times to quiet my stomach.  Cloverfield didn't bother me at all, but the shaky-cam in this movie was abusive.  I even watched the thing on a tiny laptop screen and I still got motion sick.  I understand this filming technique greatly added to the impact of the movie, but, geez, it's hard to watch sometimes.

The plot of the movie -- at least until the last 15 minutes -- is pretty standard stuff.  It's a zombie movie of the "super-rabies" type, like 28 Days Later.  What it has going for it is that it takes place in a very small apartment complex and is shot with a handheld camera.  Both of these things make the movie feel very claustrophobic and tense.  That, and the movie rarely takes a break.  It almost feels like one, unbroken shot of people running around screaming for 78 minutes.

I loved the ending with what appeared to be Rubber Johnny's mom.  At first, I was not really happy with the sudden left turn into the occult when they got to the penthouse.  But, the more I think of it, the more I like it.  What else were they going to do?  Find one more zombie up there?  Get sniped through the windows by the police?  Instead, they give us a vague explanation for the zombie outbreak, and one that's completely unique as far as I know.  From what I was able to gather in the chaos, it sounds like a doctor was trying to cure a girl possessed by a demon with medical science.  The cure he develops doesn't work at all and instead causes the outbreak.  Logically, he decides to lock the possessed girl in his penthouse and gets the hell out of Dodge.  He must have told the police about it, though.  I'm not sure how else they would've known so fast that they needed to quarantine the apartment building. I suppose [REC2] might explain more. (8/10)




Seventh Moon (2008) directed by Eduardo Sánchez
I've seen a lot of backwoods horror movies, but never one set in China.  It's a great idea to dive into the superstitions of rural China in order to scare the crap out of an American and her Chinese-American husband who can't speak Cantonese very well.  Turns out, in this part of China, they need to offer sacrifices during the full moon of the seventh lunar month, else bad stuff will happen.  Namely: quite creepy, naked, pale moon demons will take you away and kill you.

This was another shaky-cam movie, though not all the way through.  The shaky-cam parts were a little annoying, though, as they was mostly just a technique to make it hard to see the moon demons clearly.  This was not unexpected, though, coming from the director of Blair Witch.  And, I'll grudgingly admit this technique worked.  Never being able to see the moon demons clearly (until the end) greatly increases their scariness.  The blurry, pale, humanoid shapes coming after the characters in the dark are straight out of a nightmare.

I think this movie works for me because it's easy to imagine being hopelessly lost in the middle of a foreign country and not being able to speak the language.  With nothing familiar to grasp onto, it's easy for fear to take over (even without moon demons). (7/10)

And that's it for the 12 Ghost House Underground movies.  They faired a little bit better than your average Horrorfest run: I liked 5/12 of them (42%), which beats the hell out of Horrorfest's current record of 9/35 (26%) for me.  Dance of the Dead and The Children are the clear winners from both GHU sets.  I also dug Dark Floors, The Substitute and today's Seventh Moon.  Looks like I'll be saving Fangoria's Fright Fest films for next year, as I'm all out of time.  The Six Weeks are nearly over!

October 27th

Thaw (2009) directed by Mark A. Lewis
Predictable infection horror.  This time, it's a plague of bugs thawed out of a mammoth carcass in northern Canada.  You know the routine: amputating infected limbs, locking suspected infected people away, realizing how serious it is and killing infected people, one survivor escapes, and the infection spreads to the rest of the world despite the hero's best efforts.

The angle here is that global warming was responsible for thawing these critters out and an ecologist tries to intentionally infect the world as a wake-up call.  Of course, he does it in the stupidest way imaginable.  Though the disease caused by the bug seemingly kills its host rapidly -- after hours of debilitating sickness -- he decides to infect himself out in the middle of nowhere with the idea of catching a helicopter ride into town at a later time.  Even if his daughter hadn't shot his helicopter out of the sky, I'm guessing the pilot and copilot might've noticed him bursting with bugs before they landed.  Here's an idea: throw a bunch of bugs in a plastic bag and carry them that way.

Why make the bugs vertebrates?  It seems to not affect anything, and just makes me wonder how there's a vertebrate species with 6-8 limbs, segmented bodies and little feelers on their heads.  And why cast an actress who refuses to do nudity if there's a good "strip and check for bugs" scene in the middle?  And why make a guy have a bug phobia if all of his actions are better explained by plain old fear of infection? A frustrating movie. (5/10)




Saw VI (2009) directed by Kevin Greutert
Maybe the second-best one after Saw II, but that's not saying too much in this series. As I imagined, it's getting a little bit ridiculous that Jigsaw is still planning these traps three movies after he died.  If they don't magically bring him back to life for VII, it's going to be completely silly.  And his expectations for his wife and Hoffman are pretty high: "Hoffman, you will need to acquire 100 gallons of hydrofluoric acid."  Dude... where's a police detective supposed to get that much acid?  And, when does Hoffman sleep with a full-time job, zillions of people to kidnap, traps to build, and shopping trips that include merry-go-rounds and gallons of acid?  Busy guy.  And the flashbacks are also getting a little ridiculous. Now we're inserting Jill and Amanda into more places in previous movies.  I think it's safe to assume that every character in all six movies was in all locations at all times, somehow.

It's kind of preachy, but I liked that the victims in this movie were predatory lenders and health insurance company employees.  I don't mind horror movies getting a bit political or timely, even if it's in a shallow manner like here.  I think the next, logical step is for Jigsaw to start working on politicians.  In fact, if he only ever trapped people from those three groups, I'm guessing the public would be holding annual Jigsaw parades.

I have no idea what the point of the post-credits tag was.  Amanda tells the little girl kidnapped in III not to trust the man who rescues her.  Yeah, we already know that and so does almost everyone else...  Another question for VII to answer, I guess.

Not having read anything about Saw 3D (except for watching the trailer), here are my predictions for the final movie: Hoffman will die (not a tough call there), though I'd rather see the guy thrown in prison for a change.  Ol' one-foot Dr. Gordon will finally show up (I'm confident we see Jill putting a VHS tape into the mail slot of his office in this movie).  Jill will end up set up for life on a tropical island or something (Jigsaw said he'd give her a way out and I don't think he'd do anything bad to her).  And, let's see, the twist ending is that Dr. Gordon will start playing games with his patients to teach them how important their life is. Post-credit tag scene: Billy the Puppet actually contains the corpse of Gideon, the miscarried fetus. We'll see how close I am this weekend... (6/10)




Nightmare House shorts from Fewdio:


Creep (2009)
Curse (2009)
Door 17 (2009)
Anniversary (2009)
The Tale of Haunted Mike! (2009)
Breach (2009)
Marie (2009)
The Collector (2009)
The Feed (2009)
Smoke (2009)
Cleansed (2009)
The Easter Bunny Is Eating My Candy (2009)
The Tap (2009)

October 26th

Return to Sleepaway Camp (2008) directed by Robert Hiltzik
The original director and some of the original cast come back 25 years later to do it over again.  I dig that.  Most of the movie is spent observing the campers torturing the overweight Alan.  I thought this part was fairly realistic.  Alan is that typical kid who's eager to belong to the group but just doesn't have the social awareness to manage it.  He seems oblivious to the fact that, for example, wearing the same, smelly shirt everyday just makes the other kids want to pick on him even more.  I remember kids like that in school.  It seems like they don't have a chance, but it's hard to be completely sympathetic to their plight when they act like little a-holes (as Alan often does here).

It must have been hard, in the shadow of the ending of the first film, to figure out what to do with this one.  They probably went the only way they could, given that Angela had to return in some fashion.  I can't say I was shocked when she/he was revealed to be the suspiciously petite, badly-bearded Sheriff, though.  Given this reveal was no surprise, the ending is pretty unsatisfying.  Angela kills a bunch of people, she takes her disguise off, Ricky screams like a girl and Angela cackles.  No one really stopped her... she just sort of quit killing.  That's not really in keeping with slasher traditions. (6/10)




A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) directed by Samuel Bayer
Not quite as horrible as I was expecting. I think the only reason I say that is because I liked Jackie Earle Haley as Freddy.  He's meaner and move perverted than than Englund's Freddy ever was; you wouldn't see this new Freddy made into a talking doll or a squirt ball, I don't think.  I'm fine with the make-up.  Freddy's face has always changed for each movie.  I think the visible tendons in his cheek make it much grosser when he gets his face near another character's. I think "Why are you screaming? I haven't even cut ya yet." is one of the best Freddy lines of all time.

Everything surrounding Freddy, I didn't care for as much.  I think the film's largest issue is its near-complete lack of character development.  Who are these teens we're watching?  I kinda get that Nancy's a bit of a loner-geek, but why and what do the other kids think of that?  Why does Rod -- er -- Jesse run to Nancy's house after seeing Tina -- sorry-- Kris die?  Were they sort of friends?  I have no idea.  In the original, we had the four main teens gather at Tina's house.  We got to see them interact and watch them happy before anyone died.  That was important and is completely absent here.

I also think all of the scenes that were present in the original were done worse.  The CGI Freddy stretching through Nancy's wall looks ridiculous compared to the realistic-looking rubber wall of the original.  Tina's death was actually much more brutal, I thought, in the original than Kris's.  I think the shot in the original of Freddy on top of Tina under the covers makes it so.  The bathtub scene lacked the cool part where Freddy pulls Nancy deep down into the water.

One exception to this was the death of Nancy's mother at the end, which I liked in this one better than the rubber doll in the original.  And, I liked the Freddy backstory in this film as well.  Seeing the flashbacks of him interacting with the characters when they were children really drove home how evil the guy is.

They kind of shot their wad in this film as far as sequels go.  Nancy and Quentin were the only two kids from the preschool left alive by the end of the movie.  In the original series, Freddy had a seemingly unending supply of Elm street kids to pick off.  He didn't have to move on to every child in town until part 6. Speaking of, where was Elm street?  Was it the street Nancy lived on?  Did all four of the main teens live on that street?  I have no idea.  Maybe the preschool was on Elm street? How about a shot of a street sign, guys?  Remember the title of the film? (6/10)

Due to WB delaying their releases on Netflix for 4 weeks now and my desire to watch this during the Six Weeks, I rented this movie from the PlayStation Network.  That's the first and last time I'll ever do that.  I paid $6 for the HD version, which I got to keep for 14 days (but only 24 hours after playing it once).  It's a complete rip-off.  The movie was a paltry 720p with stereo sound.  The bitrate looked to average 6 or 7 mbps for an AVC encode, which translates to visible compression artifacts all over the place.  This is in no way a replacement for watching a movie on blu-ray, for sure.  I'm sure it's fine on a small screen, but blown up by a projector, it's unacceptable.  Long live physical media.