Haunted Monkey Paw Island

Grizzly Park (2008)

2011-12-10T21:43:00.000-05:00

A group of twenty somethings doing community service in an experimental program are sentenced to pick up trash at a state park. On the other side of town, an escaped killer murders the officer driving the Department of Corrections van that is supposed to pick them up. Oddly enough, the killer puts on the driver's clothes, picks up the group of young folks and drives them to the park. Even more amazing, he then remains in character to bring all their supplies up to the mountain cabin.

The group is planing to be in the park for one week while the park is closed for the season. They will be camping and their only supervision is a ranger. Uhhhhh, that doesn't seem good. Oh, and one of the guy's brought a bear suit to fool the ranger and pull pranks on the others. Yeah, that ought to go really well.

The group bonds over stories of how they got sentenced to community service which makes us hate them even more than we already did. The stories of huffing and prostitution pale in comparison to the tales of killing old people in a nursing home, poisoning your mother, or violently sexually assaulting a fifteen year old and putting her into a coma. None has any regret for the crimes they've committed, and the ones who did the most heinous crimes are psyched that they were only convicted of misdemeanors. Oh yeah, can't wait for the grizzly to take care of these jerks.

Ice Queen (2005)

2011-12-08T21:08:00.000-05:00

An airplane carrying a scientist and a newly discovered woman from the Ice Age crashes into a mountain top causing an avalanche which covers a ski resort that is shutting down for the season. The plane ends up resting inside the lodge and the small staff that were locking up find themselves trapped inside the lodge under a mountain of snow.

As the staff comb the hallways looking for other survivors, they find the scientist who is looking for the Ice Age woman, which due to a leak in her holding chamber had become a creature right before the crash. He neglects to tell them this and just mentions that he's looking for someone who was on the plane with him.

The most ridiculous part of this movie is that when anyone runs into the creature, they aren't alarmed. She looks exactly like the picture on the cover. Yet everyone keeps thinking that the blue-faced, pointy-teethed, straw-haired, red-eyed, weirdly-costumed freak is a person. What the....?!?! One guy asks her if she's okay because he thinks she must be injured, while another guy thinks she's drunk. Are you kidding me?!

As a side note, David Giancola of the MST3K film, Time Chasers, is the producer and there are shots of the same airport in this film.

Dead Air (2009)

2011-12-08T14:21:00.000-05:00

Late night shock jock Logan, his sidekick Gil, and their crew are having a normal night at work when a caller tells them of a riot that's broken out near the sports stadium. At first it appears to be some sort of fight, but as the violence spreads, it becomes apparent that the attacks are unprovoked.

The city is being over taken by mobs of crazed people trying to kill everyone in their paths. This turns out to be the work of terrorists who have unleashed chemical bombs at the stadium. The bombs have a virus that causes people to get sick, die, and go into attack mode.

As the radio personnel realize that something is very wrong, they barricade themselves in the studio which is on an upper floor of the building. When Logan can't get hold of his wife and child, Gil volunteers to check on them since he has a motorcycle and should be able to squeeze through any traffic jams.

The biggest problem with this one is that the characters do really stupid things that do not bode well for their survival. For example, the building has a garage and they've shut the gates to keep the zombies out. But when Gil goes out on his motorcycle, no one shuts the gates after him. Also if the city is overrun by zombies, it's not a great idea to go out on a motorcycle as swarms of zombies can block your path. If you run over one or crash trying to get away, you're finished. Also you have no protection as you ride through the zombies, so they might be able to knock you off your bike.

Also why do people in movies never think about the effects a bite from an insane person with blood lust, who is possibly dead? It's not like zombie mythology isn't prevalent in our society. But most films usually ignore that.

Trackman (2007)

2011-12-06T14:00:00.000-05:00

After a bank heist gone wrong in which two policemen are killed, the robbers and their hostages disappear into an abandoned subway tunnel to make their escape. The old tunnels are a labyrinth which require a map to navigate. The map will lead them to a pre-determined spot where they will meet the mastermind of the operation who can lead them out of the tunnels. When they arrive at their destination, they see his motorcycle, but he is nowhere to be found.

With no idea how to get out on their own and their guide missing, they start exploring to see if they can figure a way out. The missing guide reminds one of the robbers about a legend that states there is a killer that lives in tunnels, and steals the eyes of whoever ventures down there.

As the group treks deeper into the tunnels, they start to feel as if they are being watched. They become fearful, but are unnerved as to whether other noises in the tunnel are the police tracking them, or the rumored killer.

The movie takes place in Moscow. It is fairly cliche in how it ends, but was okay. There is a sub plot about betrayal among the robbers. Oddly enough the title character does not appear in the movie that often.

Wolves Bayne (2009)

2011-12-04T21:31:00.000-05:00

Jerk real estate developer Russell Bayne is intent on buying a local psychic's shop as he needs the land for his new money making development project. The psychic refuses and later that night Russell is attacked by a werewolf.

In another story soon to be running head long to this one, a group of vampires is trying to locate four amulets which will unleash the queen of the vampires who was vanquished in the 1800s.

While werewolves and vampires together should make an exciting film, this one is pretty boring which may be partly because it's made for tv. It is important to note that there is nothing and no one in this film that looks like the creature on the cover. In fact, the cover is the most exciting thing about this movie.

Plaguers (2008)

2011-12-04T21:23:00.000-05:00

When a space ship responds to a distress call, they find a seemingly deserted ship. After discovering four female survivors who say they were attacked by pirates, the crew vows to get them to safety.

Back on their own ship, the crew have a glowing green orb that they believe might be an alien energy source. Some of the crew want to sell it, while others want to jettison it.

The rescued women split up and start asking each crew member questions. One woman asks the pilot to show her how to fly the plane and since he's a simpleton and she's a woman, he agrees. Nothing suspicious about teaching the strange woman you found on an abandoned ship how to navigate your plane. Nope, nothing suspicious at all.

Soon the rescued women reveal their intent to take over the ship as they are actually the pirates. But when one of the women checks out the orb, it turns her into this weird zombie monster thing. So now the crew has even more trouble on their hands.

The weirdest thing about this movie is that the spaceship doesn't seem to have any futuristic, or even modern, conveniences. They do not have any way to see who is at their door, or a buzzer or speaker. When someone wants to get into a room, they either knock on the door or shout through it to get the person's attention. Even Star Trek from the lat 1960s had better future technology than that.

I Am Omega (2007)

2011-12-04T14:28:00.000-05:00

Earth's population has become zombies. Survivor Renchard lives in an isolated house and monitors different channels on his computer hoping that he's not the last man on Earth. Soon he gets a communication from a woman who asks for his help as she's in a city crawling with zombies and can't get out. He declines but shortly afterwards two survivalists show up and insist that he help them rescue this woman - and by insist I mean they blow up his house and threaten to kill him.

There are two major problems with this movie, besides that it's an Asylum movie. First, the survivalists want this woman dead because she may have an antidote for the zombie plague. Well, if you want her dead, why are you rescuing her? She's stuck in a city full of zombies and can't get out. They'll get her eventually or she'll starve to death.

Second, it is a wonder that the zombies haven't killed her already since she appears to have no sense of self-preservation. She loudly argues with her rescuers, refuses to follow their directions, shouts while they are sneaking through the city, seems oblivious to the fact that they should travel as quietly and quickly as possible, and constantly puts them in harms way by giving away their location and attracting attention to herself. She's so annoying and stupid. She may as well have said, "Hey guys, thanks for coming to rescue me. Now the only way this is going to happen is if you do exactly as I say." Oh god, just leave her there and save yourself.

Also at one point Renchard states, "Drive fast. We have less than four hours to get out of the city." Seriously? The streets are clear. There is no traffic and for the most part there are no obstructions. So how big is this freakin' city? Of course, how fast they drive isn't as important as not running into large piles of dirt that can be used as a ramp to launch/crash your only vehicle to escape even though you could have just driven around it and avoided an accident - stupid woman. Definitely shouldn't have tried to rescue her.

REC (2007)

2011-11-29T16:13:00.000-05:00

A TV crew doing a documentary piece on Firefighters goes out with the team on a call to an apartment building where an old lady is acting strange. When the policemen and firemen try to help her, she attacks them, biting one of them in the process.

When they attempt to get help for their injured co-worker, they find the building has been sealed off and authorities outside announce that they are quarantined. A health inspector is sent in to test those in the building to see who is infected. The virus, which is spread via saliva, was detected by the Vets office when a tenant brought in their dog.

This is shot from the cameraman's point of view which keeps the viewer right in the middle of things, rather than as an observer. The movie is much better than the US version, Quarantine, which kept the cause of the outbreak hidden for most of the movie. There are less plot holes. Also the reporter is frantic but not as annoying as she doesn't screech and blubber throughout the last part of the film.

Wake the Witch (2010)

2011-11-26T19:36:00.000-05:00

aka Awaken the Witch

Dude, don't wake the witch. I woke her once and she was a total ass. The title on the cover is slightly different from the title on the film. I'm not sure why they made such a slight change. It doesn't really matter.

There is a legend about a witch buried in the woods. Chains were used to keep her in the ground. So if you find a chain and follow it to her burial spot, you can call for her and make a wish - but you have to wish quickly as otherwise she'll kill you. Uhhhhh yeah, that's a game I really want to try.

Three friends find a chain in the woods and one decides to follow it and try to wake the witch. Soon after her attempt to wake the witch, she has some sort of seizure and is taken to the hospital.

One girls older brother is staying at home as he has been sick. He's acting strange and keeps going into the woods. When he ignores her shouts, she wanders into the woods to find him but is chased by a bunch of hunched over kids wearing dirty hoodies. Oooo, isn't that spooky? Well, I suppose if I were actually in the middle of the woods and it were dark, I'd be frightened. But the scene takes place in the daytime and it's on TV, so it's not doing anything for me.

This movie is bare bones and done by amateurs. It's not the worst thing I've ever seen. But quite honestly when the streaming Netflix went dead an hour into it, I wasn't that sad about missing the last 52 minutes of it. That's right, this thing is almost two hours long. Time to learn how to edit, people.

Hatchet II (2010)

2011-11-26T17:43:00.000-05:00

Picking up right where the first movie left off, final girl Marybeth manages to escape the island and wrangle up some people to go back to the swamp, help her get her father and brothers bodies, plus try to kill Victor Crowley who is still haunting the place.

The characters are mostly stereotypes and you know Victor's going to get to work a-killing them all. Marybeth is shrill and annoying. Tony Todd plays Reverend Zombie, who helps Marybeth round up the gun toting strangers for her quest, and ends up having a showdown with Victor on the island.

Alien Raiders (2008)

2011-11-25T17:59:00.000-05:00

This is a decent flick - except for the horrible title and obvious ending. A small town supermarket is over run by a group of masked intruders in what initially appears to be a robbery. The group rounds up employees and customers and appears to be searching for someone specific. One of their team mentally scans people in the store, and those deemed okay are segregated from those who have not been checked.

An off duty police officer, who happens to be in the store, calls in to report the masked intruders. The intruders exchange gunfire with the officer, who is hit. The group's scanner is killed.

At this point, the group panics. It turns out they are scientists who are trying to eliminate dangerous aliens among us and with their scanner dead, there is only one other way to tell who has been absorbed by aliens and it involves using a knife.

The police arrive with a hostage negotiator who turns out to be the father of one of the hostages, a young cashier.

While I enjoyed the film, the ending was really obvious. Plus there were some questions that went unanswered:

How did the scientists know that the alien would be at that supermarket at that particular time? Wouldn't it be more likely that if it was definitely going to be there, you could concentrate on employees rather than customers?
How could a team who obviously had prior experience tracking and eliminating aliens, (based on all the videotapes of prior missions), not do a complete sweep of the building?
Even if they believe they have the king, why let anyone else leave without scanning them? They still might be infected and a second scanner has arrived.
When the teen cashier argues that she knows they will be killed and need to escape, why does anyone listen to her? First, listening to her father's stories of hostage negotiation does not mean that she has the same knowledge. Second since the intruders already let some people go there is no reason to think they won't let the others go. Lastly, the scientists are obviously looking for someone specific rather than a random search, so if you have nothing to hide you should be okay.

Jonah Hex (2010)

2011-11-24T21:02:00.000-05:00

Jonah Hex mumbles his way through the movie and makes us realize that our time would be better spent reading old comic books.

Comic covers below and tons of other covers can be found at the awesome web site, Cover Browser.

Children of the Corn 7: Revelation (2001)

2011-11-24T19:30:00.000-05:00

Jamie hasn't been able to get in touch with her grandmother and decides to visit to make sure she's okay. Her grandmother lives in a seedy apartment building right next to a cornfield. The few neighbors left in the building and the front desk person haven't seen her grandmother in awhile and aren't any help. So Jamie decides to file a missing persons report with the police.

After she decides to stay in her grandmothers apartment, Jamie goes to the local supermarket where she meets some creepy Amish type kids. The kids keep showing up wherever Jamie goes, and keep getting creepier since they never say anything, continually stare at her, and seem to appear and disappear in the blink of an eye.

There are children and there is some corn, but that's about the only connection this has to spooky kids killing people in cornfields. The movie mostly takes place inside the rundown apartment building. Also I thought this town was in the middle of nowhere but there are skyscrapers and a large city in the background which makes the lack of people and police all the more strange - but not strange enough to be interesting.

Rise of the Undead (2005)

2011-11-24T16:44:00.000-05:00

This was difficult to get through. There is bad cgi before the credits start, and an hour into the film there is a revelation that would have been creative in the 1970s, but now is such a cliche that you'll wish you'd never wasted your time on this.

A group of strangers end up in a nearby building trying to escape multiple fireballs and explosions that are rocking the city. Personally I'd want to get out of an exploding, flaming city, but oh well. They run into Jay who provides exposition regarding bio warfare (which doesn't explain the exploding buildings) and advises that the safest thing to do is to head to an underground military base two miles away.

Apparently the bio warfare turns people into zombies that pop out from dark rooms and hallways. The problem about watching a fight for survival in a dark room is that you can't tell what is going on, nor can you tell the zombies from the humans. It's even more confusing when the darkened fight all of a sudden switches to brightly lit footage of feet running by the camera. Huh?

As the zombies mount further attacks, the number of survivors dwindle until there is only one left. And this is when you'll rue the day you decided to watch this, as all of a sudden the lone survivor wakes up. That's right, wakes the fuck up. It was all a dream. Everyone is still alive. In another annoying plot point, two of the strongest characters decide to give up trying to survive, even though it hasn't even been a day.

That leaves us with some sort of cgi energy creature that exists only within the dark and is in the building. Luckily the group manages to produce a camera from thin air and use the flash to ward off this dark energy creature. Hurrah... no wait, I hate them all and want them dead.

The dialogue is often a lower volume than the sound effects and music. There is a super long boring story told by a bad actor about his grandmother's spider monkey. One scene is shot from the same camera angle with characters in different positions. Consequently it appears as if the characters teleport back and forth to different positions during the scene, which is stupid rather than artistic. Lastly, at one point, one of the characters says "Does it really matter what it is or why it's happening?" Yes, yes it does.

Venom (2005)

2011-11-23T17:40:00.000-05:00

When an old voodoo lady accidentally runs her car off a bridge, local tow truck driver Ray helps two teens try to save her. Once she is free from the car, she insists that Ray go back into the perilously hanging vehicle to retrieve her suitcase. When he does, the case flies open, cgi snakes are released and the car, with Ray in it, plunges into the murky water below.

The suitcase in question had been dug up from a graveyard and was filled with the souls of evil that the old lady milked via her voodoo. Ray's dead body becomes possessed by these souls, and they want revenge and for some reason it is against the teens. Eventually the only safe place they can find is the hoome of the old lady which is out in the middle of the swamp. Nothing new or fantastic, just a generic horror movie.

The Hazing (2004)

2011-11-23T16:57:00.000-05:00

aka Dead Scared

Five pledges to a combined fraternaty / sorority are given a list of items to find for a scavenger hunt. One of the items is an ancient text that their professor is rumored to own. Two of the pledges decide to break into his house to find the book, which seems fairly excessive for some stupid scavenger hunt. While looking for the book, they find bloody bodies in the basement and the professor performing some sort of ritual on the corpses.

After being chased upstairs by the professor, they accidentally almost kill him during a fight and call 911 before leaving. At the hospital, the professor dies and his spirit gets the pledge to read an incantation which allows him to possess the pledges body so he can start killing again.

The professor dies several times while at the hospital, but no one notices. Once they notice there's a problem, he kills the doctor and others.

The pledges end up at the frat house. The members tell them the story of the killer who used to live in the house, and have rigged the house to scare them. When the professors spirit shows up, he causes havoc. Brad Dourif is awesome as the professor and is the high point of the movie.

The Fear Chamber (2009)

2011-11-22T17:23:00.000-05:00

A serial killer who sometimes paints his face like a Juggalo is abducting young women. Detective Nick Ferguson, who let the killer escape after being stabbed in the chest, vows to track him down and feels guilty that more girls are being murdered. Nick starts having visions of the girls that are victimized by this madman.

True to cop movie cliches, Nick has a drinking problem, feels guilty about his wife's murder, has a supervisor who questions his methods, is consumed by this particular case, and is ultimately suspended and must turn in his badge.

It's slow moving and drawn out, with little to keep you interested. There's a twist ending which is just sort of "oh" and not the big reveal it's supposed to be because you just won't care. Richard Tyson chews up some scenery as the face painting doctor, but he's not given much to work with, so far play Mr. Tyson, fair play. Oh and as with any movie, the appearance of nudity before the credits means we are in for a long ride.

Don't Go In the Cellar (2008)

2011-11-21T19:34:00.000-05:00

A group of college kids decide to have a party in an old lunatic asylum. The asylum, though long abandoned, is clean and appears to be someones home rather than an old hospital. There is a sectional sofa in the living room (yes, they have a livingroom), a hallway with knickknacks on bookshelves, and doors that look like bedroom doors. In fact the entire interior screams I'm a suburban home.

The cellar door and walls look like a set. The college classroom has folding tables and the teachers desk appears to have a black table sheet over it. Best of all is the padded room which is made from paper and staples. I actually didn't realize it was supposed to be a padded room for quite a while since it doesn't look anything like padding.

The main character is a girl with such severe fear of interacting with other people that it doesn't seem possible that she could actually attend college. Her older sister doesn't help matters by being extremely controlling and over protective.

The class has been studying the asylum and for extra credit they decide to do more research on it as a group project. Their idea of research is going to the asylum to party and then after a couple of hours, they'll start doing their research. Oh yeah, that ought to be some really accurate research.

After the kids kick off their party, they meet Wendall, whose sole purpose seems to be to stand in the padded room and tell people not to go into the cellar. As is usual in horror movies, the warning is not heeded and everyone ends up at one time or another going into the cellar. Good job, college kids!

IMDB lists the budget at $1.2 million. If that's accurate, I wonder what that money went to because it certainly wasn't spent on actors, props, or sets. Seriously, it looks like it was filmed in someone's house - sectional sofa, knickknacks, bookshelves, hollow core doors, even signs of a cat. Note that from the outside, the asylum door is solid, but once they are inside, there is a window and the door looks like your standard living room door. Also of note, Randal Malone plays Wendell. Enough said.

The cover does not depict anything from the movie. The asylum looks nothing like the building on the cover, and there are no cells.

Deadfall Trail (2009)

2011-11-21T19:22:00.000-05:00

One of the reasons I picked this up this collection is that Deadfall Trail looked interesting. The cover art shows three guys walking into trees,which turn out to be the teeth in a giant skull! So imagine my surprise when I watched the movie and discovered it is not a horror film.

Julien, John, and Paul head out for a three week trek in the wilderness. Julien and John are used to going into the woods in survivalist mode, but Paul has never done this before. Julien is disgusted at this piece of information and believes that Paul will be a detriment to their trip. Julien insists they each only bring a bottle of water, a knife and a small satchel. No maps, food, or tents are allowed.

The ultimate goal is never really established, other than communing with nature and eating peyote once they decide they have reached the right destination. And that leaves the viewer with too many questions. How did the three of them decide to head into the woods together? Why doesn't Paul know how bare bones the expedition was going to be? Why doesn't Paul listen to the advice the more experienced guys give him? Why did John decide to invite Paul when Paul has no survival skills and Julien is high strung about the way things are done and has no patience for newbies?

Unfortunately Julien's fears about Paul prove to be well founded when there is an accident seven days walk into the wilderness. While this is supposed to provide tension, it doesn't as the characters are kind of annoying. Julien seems like a dickhead, Paul is an idiot who doesn't take the seasoned trekkers advice seriously, and you can never figure out why the three of them are on this trip together. So you end up being annoyed at two of the three characters and wondering why any of them thought this was a good idea.

Slaughterhouse Phi: Death Sisters (2006)

2011-11-21T17:37:00.000-05:00

Yup, you know how bad this one is going to be just by looking at the cover art. During a hazing ritual at an abandoned orphanage, one of the pledges accidentally dies. Instead of calling for help or reporting the accident, the pledge leader decides to bury the dead girl. You'd think the other pledges might be suspicious when they never see her again, but no.

A year later, the police have given up and her father has stopped pestering the sorority about his daughters whereabouts. So the pledge leader decides it's okay to do the same hazing ritual in the same place.

Unbeknownst to them, the ghost of the dead girl has been murdering people. A photographer takes a girl to the house to take some photos. When she doesn't want to drop her top, the guy physically assaults a girl after setting his camera on auto to take photos the assault. Yeah, not too bright, that one. Fortunately the ghost shows up and save the day... until she also kills the girl.

Rusel Malone plays the detective, who looks so unlike a detective in his wood paneled basement office. But we know he definitely is a detective by the trench coat and fedora he wears. He's suspicious of the sorority girls, but has no evidence.

The ritual goes horribly wrong again due to the appearance of the murderous ghost. When one is killed, they all run out of the house. Inexplicably, they stop running once they get to the front porch. After a long discussion, they decide that they need to go back into the house to get a cell phone to call for help... even though someone was just murdered and a killer is in the house. Although the house is supposed to be thirty minutes from nearest town but you can see another roof off to the left of the driveway. Gah!! Terrible!

Hobo with a Shotgun (2011)

2011-11-15T17:29:00.000-05:00

Hobo Rutger Hauer rides the train into town and finds a city full of fear, crime, violence, and immorality. The city is run by The Drake and his sons, all vile human beings who terrorize the residents and control all the illegal activities in town. So powerful are they, that they kill and torture those who cross them in broad daylight in front of witnesses without fear of reprisal.

When the hobo gets caught in the middle of a pawn shop robbery where the robbers threaten to kill a baby, he decides to take matters into his own hands. He buys a shotgun and decides to clean up the town. This causes the Drake to put a bounty on his head and the whole town, including the police, try to kill him. The only one who stands by him is the hooker with a hear of gold that he rescued from Drake's son.

This is violent and depressing and definitely harkens back to the grindhouse pictures of the seventies. You'll feel dirtier for having watched it.

Late Fee (2009)

2011-11-13T11:46:00.000-05:00

A couple heads to the video store on Halloween only to find the owner locking up for the night. They convince him to let them in as they swear they only want two movies which they'll pick up asap.

The owner, dressed as the devil, is having a Halloween party for his friends. He recommends two videos, which they rent. The rental agreement is the size of a book and the owner warns them to have the movies back by midnight or pay the price.

Oddly enough the couple is still getting trick or treaters at 10 pm, and complain about the interruptions since they're trying to watch their movies. Geez people, just turn off your damn porch light! Also there is no way they can get through both movies in two hours, but somehow there is a rip in the time space continuum and they manage to do it. However they do not return the videos per their agreement, and shortly after midnight there is a knock at the door.

First, be forewarned that this is an anthology. If you don't know that going into it, it's very confusing when the story switches to a different movie all of a sudden. The late fee story exists only as a way to patch together two short films, The Pick Up and Damnation, which are supposed to be the videos they're watching. I wasn't aware that this was an anthology and got completely confused when it cut from the renters on the couch to several people and a location I'd never seen before. Honestly, I had no interest in either short film since the description and movie title did not give a hint that this was an anthology.

The Stay Awake (1987)

2011-11-13T11:38:00.000-05:00

A group of girls at a private school are staying awake to raise money. The school is deserted except for the girls and their chaperon who are staying in the gym. The spirit of a serial killer enters the building and starts murdering whoever he can get his hands on.

It's never clear why the killer is targeting these girls, especially since he was executed in the US. How did his spirit get to Europe? Wouldn't it be easier to go after a girls school in the state where he died?

Also someone should have told the special effects team that a gooey, scaly monster with jelly candy eyes is not so spooky.

Terror at the Red Wolf Inn (1972)

2011-11-09T18:51:00.000-05:00

aka Terror House

Regina receives an envelope with no return address that contains a letter telling her she's won a vacation. Naive Regina calls the number provided, even though she didn't enter any contest, and is so overcome with giddy excitement that she doesn't question when she is told she'll have to leave immediately to redeem her prize. Nor does she falter when she is told by the pilot of the private charter plane she'll be taking to an unknown destination that she will have to call her mom later.

When she arrives at the Red Wolf Inn, she meets two other college girls who won vacations, Inn owners Evelyn and John, and their grandson Baby John, who is college aged but seems a little soft in the head.

The Inn is beautiful, the owners friendly, and Regina thinks John is cute. Evelyn cooks huge, delicious meals for everyone. It's uncomfortable to watch the eating scenes as people are gorging like they haven't eaten in days. It's bizarre. Their cheeks bulge with food and yet they continue to shovel it in. Everyone agrees the ribs are the most tender, tasty things they've ever eaten. Yet we know this is going to end badly since there is too much emphasis on the food and Evelyn doesn't want anyone near the walk in meat locker in the kitchen.

Regina, although a complete ditz, is still likable which is surprising since she doesn't think twice about taking this vacation and doesn't pick up on clues that something isn't right at the house. She doesn't even get creeped out by the very odd incident which occurs on the beach. Baby John beats a shark to death while repeatedly screaming, "Shark!" like a crazy man, then turns to look at Regina and deadpans, "I think I love you," before he walks off.

The biggest question I have is about their method of operation to procure women. Wouldn't it be easier to pick up hitchhikers rather than send anonymous letters to college co-eds? If anyone had been around in the dorm, Regina would have told them she'd won a vacation. What percentage of letters get a response, and what are they paying their pilot who must be on call to bring women out but never bring anyone back?

Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday (1993)

2011-11-08T19:27:00.001-05:00

I thought I saw all the Friday the 13th movies in the theater, but I don't remember this one. I can't believe I didn't see it, but it doesn't look familiar. Perhaps I blotted it from my memory since Jason isn't really in it. Can it really be a Friday the 13th movie when Jason inhabits other people's bodies (by slowly dribbling a large black slug into their mouths, gross!) Serious, if Jason is represented on screen as a different character who is possessed rather than a huge behemoth in a hockey mask, it's really not Jason, is it?

Only a Voorhees can kill a Voorhees, or so the legend goes, which is what causes all this trouble and leads those left alive to end up in the Voorhees Mansion which has trap doors in the floors. Huh? Since when did the family have a mansion and why would they have trap doors?

In a finale that can only be described as laser show Jason, good triumphs over evil again... until next time when we get a teaser for the next Freddy vs. Jason movie.

Drainiac (2000)

2011-11-05T13:16:00.002-05:00

If you expect to see anything like the monster on the cover, you'll be sorely disappointed as the only thing you'll see is some slime and some things that look like meat tentacles.

Julie's abusive dad leaves her to clean up an isolated old house he just bought. When her friends decide to bring her lunch, they are followed by a creepy bully who tries to assault one of the girls.

There is green slimey goo in the basement. It eats a hobo. Yet when the kids are there, it does not appear. The meat tentacles appear in Julie's dream and also erupt from the toilet to devour the unsuspecting bully.

A stranger shows up at the door, claims the house is haunted by a ghost in the pipes and asks for help doing an exocism.

There is not much monster in the film. Just some green goo, a few meat tentacles and some cgi stuff during the exorcism.

The New York Ripper (1982)

2011-10-25T16:20:00.000-05:00

When a serial killer starts targeting women in New York City, the police team up with a professor to discover the killers identity.
After a report that a woman was followed off a train and attacked by a man with two fingers, the police issue a APB for him.

The report is heard on the radio by a prostitute spending the night a two fingered man. She freaks out, runs into the hotel hallway to escape, and runs into the real killer at which point she will die die die.

And in an very odd twist (and you'll probably think I'm joking) the killer talks like a duck. That's right, you heard me. He makes a lot of phone calls and always sounds like Donald Duck, even when he's mad. It's stupefying. The film is full of sleazy New York locations and disturbing kills, but then to completely throw you, there's this duck quacking on the phone. It's bizarre.

Evil Aliens (2005)

2011-10-23T16:12:00.001-05:00

The cast and crew of Weird World drive out to an island (only reachable at low tide). The island is owned by a farming family of three brothers and a sister. The sister has claimed she was impregnated by an alien. There is a stone circle on the island which is rumored to be cursed and is the spot of the alien abduction.

Although Weird World reports on UFOs, the supernatural, and Cryptozoology, none of the cast or crew have ever seen anything to make them believe in what they report on. In fact, they don't believe anything they report on and believe only in how much money they can make from sensationalizing the stories.

They decide to bring uber fan Gavin, the head of a UFO club, to help sell the reality of the story. Gavin regularly writes to them to report any errors they've made and is a true believer in aliens.

Also on board for the trip are several actors and an alien suit so they can reenact the abduction. They interview the sister, who gets upset when they start cross examining her and obviously don't believe her. Gavin discovers they are faking evidence for their show. The host claims they are just there to entertain, and informs him that everything they've ever reported was fake.

What the cast and crew doesn't realize is that they have stumbled across real alien activity and the stone circle on the island is a charging station for alien ships. Soon they will have a battle on their hands as they try to survive the alien onslaught.

Killer Instinct (2001)

2011-10-23T15:55:00.003-05:00

A group of teenagers go to an abandoned insane asylum, which turns out to be incredibly clean and full of hundreds of lit candles. The friends have a club, either called the Fear Club or the Dare Club, I'm not sure which as what they do is neither scary nor daring. The task tonight is a scavenger hunt where they must each hide someones underwear and whoever finds the most undies is the winner. Ridiculous for so many reasons, but most importantly this place is three stories high and huge. How would they ever find even one piece of underwear in it?

Meanwhile Sarah Fairchild, played by Dee Wallace, is in town to make an offer on the meat packing plant, which is the life blood of the town. But when the board angrily refuses to sell, this causes Fairchild to snap into hard boiled detective mode as she delves deeper into the small town's history. She scours microfiche and libraries in a frenzy to find out what is so important about the land and the asylum, and finds a scandal that has been buried and untalked about for years.

Back at the asylum, the kids have gotten locked in and things are starting to go horribly wrong. There's a killer locked in with them, but they don't realize it. So they do the normal things that teens do when they go to an abandoned asylum - wander off on their own, have sex, and take a shower. There is no explanation for why the shower is clean and working, why the bed sheets are not dusty or dirty, or for the lack of any filth anywhere in the abandoned building - which if you didn't set up the scenario that it had been empty for years, you'd think someone lived there.

Madness (2010)

2011-10-23T15:50:00.007-05:00

Two cheerleaders, who seem to have taken acting lessons from Tommy Wiseau, are heading to a big cheerleading competition in Minneapolis. They stop in the middle of nowhere for gas, meet two guys whose car isn't working, and give them a ride.

Unfortunately the teens have attracted the attention of a messed up hillbilly family whose hobby is killing young folks. After the one eyed freaky hillbilly throws a dead animal on their windshield, they run off the road and are forced to head back to the gas station on foot.

On the way back, they manage to get a ride from a driver who turns out to be another freaky hillbilly. Personally, I'd be suspicious if there was a cage between the front and back seat, but these kids don't bat an eye until they realize they're being kidnapped. One of the guys dives out of the moving car in a bid to escape, but the others just sit there and don't try to run even once they've stopped.

The characters are supposed to be American teenagers, but it's obvious by their accents and dialogue that they are anything but. The gas is sold in liters and the station is called Pump.

When the teens manage to get the upper hand at various times throughout the film, they do not capitalize on their situation by grabbing guns or weapons to make sure the hillbillys can't hurt them. Instead, they just run off into the woods. Also I can't believe that multiple hits in the face with brass knuckles wouldn't cave in part of your skull, or that when someone's neck essentially has a spigot pouring blood, that he could continue to run through the woods.

Deadlands: The Rising (2006)

2011-10-11T14:43:00.000-05:00

Dave and Gary head out early in the morning for a day of shooting cans and drinking beer in the country. When they try to get home that night, they find the city in gridlock as a zombie outbreak has overrun the town.

While Gary's wife and son are waiting for his return, there is a knock at the door. The police are advising everyone to lock all their doors and windows, and stay inside. As soon as the policeman steps off the porch, he is set upon by zombies. Oddly enough this prompts Gary's wife to decide to go outside, get in the car and leave. Geez lady, at least wait until the zombies have wandered off.

Eventually she meets up with Dave and Gary at a friends house which is isolated and in the middle of nowhere. As time passes, they wonder if the zombies are still out there as they haven't seen or heard anyone in a long time. Hmmm, did the zombies learn how to drive? Because you can hear traffic in the background.

The main problem with this film is that it's an amateur production. There is lots of padding, bad sound, bad pacing, uninspiring camera work, and not much happens during the movie. The zombies are mostly absent from the film, and when they do appear they seem to have white face paint on. Also if it was the zombie apocalypse, wouldn't you at least keep your porch door shut and locked, just in case?

I give anyone credit who can actually get a movie filmed, edited, and completed. But at the same time, just because I admire the dedication and effort that went into it, that doesn't mean it's good.

As a side note, while I was watching it I wrote down the words horrible and slow. But I honestly can't remember whether I was referring to the zombies or the movie.

Sasquatch Mountain (2006)

2011-10-11T14:38:00.000-05:00

aka Devil on the Mountain

The first thing you'll notice is that the title card in the film says Devil on the Mountain, but the dvd says Sasquatch Mountain. Hmmm, that doesn't bode well.

When their hold up goes wrong, a group of bank robbers shoot a deputy. But on the way out of town on an isolated dirt road, they end up in a car accident. With the police hot on their heels, the two groups engage in a gun battle before the bad guys disappear into the woods with their hostage Erin.

Erin has in her possession a VHS that was given to her by the gas station attendant who was having a yard sale at work. The video just happens to contain home video of Bigfoot taken by the attendant's mother who shot the footage the night she died.

Since Erin wants a picturesque route out of town, she's advised to take the dirt road which will eventually turn scenic. Yeah.... but when I'm driving through an area I'm not familiar with I never take dirt roads in the middle of nowhere.

Chase Jackson, played by Lance Henriksen, is a tow truck drive whose wife died twenty years ago when she was hit by a car. But right before she died, she captured footage of Bigfoot. The hit and run is not a plot point, although I figured it would be. The biggest hole in the story would be that for twenty years Lance has maintained that they saw Bigfoot that night, and no one will believe him. So... he never showed anyone the freaking tape? I can see why he wouldn't want to watch it since his wife was hit while filming, but holy cow give it so someone else.

It's robbers vs. lawmen. vs. the tracker vs. Chase Jackson vs. Bigfoot in a mediocre, mostly non-Bigfoot robbers-on-the-lam movie.

House (1977)

2011-10-08T14:31:00.001-05:00

aka Hausu

Total craziness from Japan with a freaky cat painting that spews blood, a piano that consumes people, and a spirit waiting for her fiance who never came back from the war.

Oshare and her father always take a summer vacation together. But this year her father announces he is getting married and his fiance is coming along on their vacation.

Oshare is upset and decides to visit her Aunt, who she met once when six years old. Along for the ride are six friends whose names describe their personalities - Sweet, Fantasy, Professor, Melody, Kung Fu, and Mac. Mac likes to eat and is the butt of many fat jokes, but she's really not fat.

Strange things happen as the objects in the house attack and kill the girls. The Aunt needs to eat young girls to remain young. She also has a cat with supernatural powers. Also inexplicably, Mr. Togo turns into a huge pile of bananas. Huh?

R-Point (2004)

2011-10-08T14:30:00.000-05:00

The military is shocked when they start receiving distress calls from a unit in the field that disappeared over six months ago. The only man to return from the unit was badly burned, traumatized, and claimed that they were attacked, but insisted it was not by the Vietcong.

A rescue team is sent to R-Point, where the unit was last seen. As they make their way through the landscape, they must deal with enemy firepower, a lake which is now a burial ground, strange visitors, and the possibility that the land is haunted and they may never return home.

While there is some suspense, it is easy to get the characters confused as they are mainly seen in a group and most of the guys do not have any background or character development.

Vampire Party (2008)

2011-09-29T18:49:00.000-05:00

aka Les dents de la nuit

Friends Sam, Alice, and Prune manage to get invitations to Medici Night, an exclusive party that takes place in a secret location, and is the stuff of urban legends. The trio, along with other guests, are flown via helicopter to an old castle where an invitation is required for admittance.

Inside the castle is a rave where the crowd are going wild. But what the party goers don't realize is that inside another entrance there is a different group of party goers waiting to attend. For in reality, the party is a ruse to provide dinner for a large group of vampires.

The rest of the movie involves the main characters trying to escape the castle. Somehow they all manage to avoid being bitten when the feasting on blood began. There are some laughs, but the film is not like Airplane, as it says on the front cover. It's okay, but not a laugh riot. I don't think I laughed out loud even once.

Scream (1981)

2011-09-29T18:29:00.000-05:00

A group on a rafting trip decide to spend the night in a ghost town. When one of them is killed, they question whether the killer is a stranger or one of their group. Although the victim died while wandering off on his own, two others wander off alone during the night and meet their demise.

The next day they discover their rafts are gone. The nearest town is thirty miles away and no one will send a search party until they don't show up at their scheduled destination that night. Despite the presence of a killer in town, the group decide to wait for help rather than leave.

Later in the day, two lost dirt bikers arrive and the group convinces one to let them borrow his bike to try to get help. That night an old man on a horse, along with a dog, come into town with the body of one of the dirt bikers. The old man tells them a confusing story about a sea caption and then leaves.

If you're looking for thrills or a revelation of who or what is doing the killings, or even a glimpse of the killer, you'll be sadly mistaken. There is not a lot of dialogue and the music is right out of an early 80s tv show, think Hardcastle and McCormick or Magnum PI. It's pretty slow moving and there isn't really a pay off since the killer's identity is left open ended.

Graveyard Disturbance

2011-09-29T18:24:00.000-05:00

Five teens shoplift at a small store while traveling in a custom painted Van with portraits of Madonna and Duran Duran on the side of it. While trying to escape from the police in the Obvious Mobile, the group turns down a dirt road they believe is a short cut and end up stuck in the mud. After a long walk, they bed down in the ruins of a church for the night but soon awaken to strange noises and discover a neon sign designating a pub in the basement of the ruins.

The inhabitants of the pub are super sketchy, but our little group sits down to order food and drink. When they notice a glass globe about three feet wide filled with valuables, the Proprietor tells them that anyone who can spend the entire night in the crypts can claim the treasure.

Oddly enough the group devise a plan in which David will volunteer to be locked in the crypts for the night. Once the pub closes, then the others can sneak back in to join him. It doesn't make any sense on so many levels. You want to grab them and shout, "Hey kids, notice how that container is filled with cash, jewels, and gold? Well, that means that all those other people before you have failed." Well I guess you'd want to do that if you cared about them, but they're not the most likeable folks.

After the others are in the crypts, they locate David and bodies start rising from coffins while strange monsters lurk in the dark hallways until roused by the groups appearance. All the kids want to leave but can't figure a way out. There is a weird eyeball monster and one of the bodies in the crypt has a rotten head but a normal body.

Forget Me Not (2009)

2011-09-25T19:29:00.004-05:00

While celebrating their high school graduation, a group of friends drives out to the cemetery to play a game they used to play when they were kids. One person is the ghost, and everyone they tag becomes ghosts until one person is left. When the vengeful spirit of Angela is awakened, the group become targets of her wrath as they were responsible for her getting hurt as a child.

Sandy, who used to be Angela's friend, is the only one who can remember things as they were. As each of her friends dies, it is as if they never existed. The remaining members of the group start thinking Sandy is having a breakdown. None of them have any memory of the people who die or their houses or cars which appear long abandoned. It all becomes a race against time as Sandy tries to figure out what is really going on, how to stop it, and why she is the only one who can remember people who were their best friends.

While it's an interesting concept, there are a couple of problems. Since Angela is not dead, how can her spirit interact with and kill those who did her wrong. Also, Angela's reaction to her best friend playing a game with the other kids is kind of psycho, which makes her a much less sympathetic character. Based on her outburst, you can actually identify with the kids who decide to play a prank on her. Let's face it, no one likes to hang out with a big baby.

But the biggest problem is the ripple effect that would come from friends not ever existing. Someone is erased from history, yet their friends lives remain almost unchanged, except for a lack of memory. So if TJ never existed, the house he lived in would be long abandoned? No one else would have lived there for years? Did I blink and miss that he had fixed up an abandoned house? It would be much more effective if someone else lived there. Or someone else was driving the sports car.

When the movie begins, we randomly cut from scene to scene, all with different characters. We aren't told who they are or how they relate to each other. Also all the girls look very similar, so we kept getting confused as to whether the new scene had a new girl, or one who'd already been interacting with other characters.

Lastly, the ghosts, or whatever they are, that kill the kids look like a cross between the twitchy Japanese horror spirits, Marilyn Manson in the Beautiful People video, and someone in an Ace Frehley costume made out of duct tape.

Kull the Conquerer (1997)

2011-09-25T19:27:00.003-05:00

When Kull beats the King in a sword fight, the dying monarch bestows his crown on Kull. The heirs to the throne band to gether to plot Kull's death by reanimating the Red Witch. The witch puts a spell on Kull in order to become his bride. When the witch poisons him on his wedding night, the heirs are ecstatic until they discover the witch has changed her bargain with them and intends to remain in power.

Kull bands together with the palace psychic and her priest brother in order to destroy the witch and the men who sought his death. Kull is a benevolent King who makes positive changes in the kingdom, like freeing the slaves. Oh that Kull, he's such a good guy.

The music vears from metal to orchestral and back again. Much of the movie could be from a Manowar metal video. There are a plethora of cod pieces in this flick.

The Thaw (2009)

2011-09-25T19:25:00.001-05:00

When you title your movie, you should try to make it something that will generate some sort of interest so people will want to see your film. The Thaw, besides being really generic, is almost a tongue twister and sounds like whoever is saying it has a lisp. How about for the next one we call it The Thcrewdriver?

Dr. Kruipen, world famous expert in global warming, is in the Artic doing research in hopes of convincing people of the seriousness of this issue. While tracking a polar bear, he discovers the melting ice caps have revealed a wooly mammoth. However the mammoth is infected with some sort of parasite which is not finicky about who or what it inhabits.

Three students majoring in Ecology who were chosen to work with Kruipen are already on their way. The fourth member of their team, Kruipen's daughter, is only there due to feeling forced into it by her often absent father.

Due to the risks associated with his find, Kruipen asks the pilot to tell his daughter there is a change of plans and she can not come out to the site. She refuses to accept this since she has traveled so far, as well as the fact that she is angry at her father so she's not going to do what he says.

When the pilot, college students, and daughter arrive at home base, they find it deserted and also find the carcass of the polar bear in the lab. When one of her father's crew shows up badly injured and no one at the camp will answer on the radio, two of the students head out to find out what happened. The parasite is at the site and back at the base, and as it infects people, the chances of survival get slimmer.

Brain Twisters (1993)

2011-09-13T19:33:00.002-05:00

Professor Phillip Rothman, who looks like a cross between Alice Cooper and Rik Ocasek, is using his students in a research project for a company called Biotonics. Skanky Michelle is doing poorly in class, so she offers sex for a good grade. But Rothman would rather have her assist in his experiment meant to measure emotional responses to nerve stimulation. Somehow this relates to computer game research.

Michelle is afraid of having electrodes hooked up to her head. Rothman tells her, "If it's too much to handle, push the escape button." My rule? Count me out if your experiment is risky enough to need an escape button. Too bad Michelle didn't have the same self preservation instincts since Rothman's experiment has the side effect of causing uncontrollable anger which leads to attacking and/or killing other people.

Meanwhile Laurie, who is in the same class and is doing work study for Rothman, finds her best friend murdered. The Detective asks her to accompany him when they tell her friend's fiance, Ted. They find Ted working as a waiter, order a meal, and then tell him the bad news. As can be expected, Ted reacts badly. But it gets weird because there are pinball sound effects, Ted looks strange, and then he jumps out the window.

Police are suspicious of Rothman because he claimed Ted's body and has a signed contract stating the body can be used for scientific research. Rothman feigns innocence, but since his experiments involve cutting the heads off corpses, you know there's a problem.

Lost Boys: The Thirst (2010)

2011-09-07T19:15:00.001-05:00

The author of a series of teen vampire novels recruits retired vampire hunter Edgar Frog to help find her younger brother who disappeared at a rave. She believes he was taken by vampires who plan to use him as a sacrifice at a huge underground rave about to take place nearby.

The new drug supplied at the raves is called Thirst. Kids are given the drug which contains blood from the alpha vampire, thus ushering them into the league of the undead.

Along with Edgar, the novelist also hires a reality TV host who thinks this is like his show, a fake. Edgar is not happy about this development, but decides to lead the mission as if he lets the obnoxious TV host go off on his own it will surely be a disaster.

Alan Frog, who was bitten by a vampire, contributes to the cause by making equipment that Edgar can use to kill the vampires.

While it can't complete with the original movie, it's still better than the sequel from a few years ago which featured random teens who come to stay in town and meet vampires. The Frog Brothers are central to this movie, which makes it work.

The Apple (1980)

2011-09-07T19:06:00.000-05:00

Metaphor-heavy, social commentary wrapped in a disco bow, The Apple is set in the "future" (1994) and tells the fable of a duo who discover that they must sell their souls to Satan to get ahead in the music industry. Naive duo Alfie and Bibi travel from a small town to compete in a world singing competition but are beaten by a band sponsored by BIM, Boogalow International Music.

When Mr. Boogalow offers them a contract, they are ecstatic until Alfie starts to read it and decides not to sign. Bibi betrays Alfie by signing the contract as she is willing to do whatever it takes to make it big. Soon Bibi is selling out concerts all over the world, with throngs of fans mobbing her everywhere she goes. She's also under influence of speed as Mr. Boogalow keeps his artists in a state of subservience with pharmaceuticals and thinly veiled threats to do what he requests.

Alfie wants to make it on his own, but is going nowhere. He misses Bibi and sees how shes changed. So he tries to save her from herself, the star machine that is BIM and Mr. Boogalow who is Satan. There are lots of songs, dancing, and discoing all over the place.

As always, anytime someone in the 1980s tries to picture what the future looks like, they get it horribly, hilariously wrong. There are many flashy, glittery, silvery ridiculous outfits.

Yup, no religious overtones in this scene.

In 1994, everyone will dress like this.

Bibi wears silver spandex and makes it big.

Dark Harvest 3: Scarecrow (2004)

2011-09-04T13:11:00.000-05:00

aka Skarecrow

Well, if there's one thing I can say about this - unlike Dark Harvest 2 - there certainly is a killer scarecrow in it.

A group of friends, who don't seem to like each all that much, head up to an old family cabin for their annual weekend retreat. On the way they stop for gas and receive a warning of death from a crazy old blind preacher. They ignore it and continue to the abandoned cabin, which is inexplicably spotless.

Although there were remarks about the water being undrinkable and no one has used the place for years, as soon as they arrive one of the girls wants to take a bath. Very strange considering it only took an hour to drive there. Why wouldn't she bathe before the trip? Makes no sense.

Due to the flashback at the beginning of the movie, we know that the family ran an illegal moonshine operation and seized the land from the actual owner. Bad news as the old lady was a witch and her curse immediately brought death at the hands of her scarecrow. And what our semi-young vacationers do not know is that the witch cursed the moonshiners descendents. Hurrah for the fun weekend ahead!

There is lots of beer and plans for the pursuit of the opposite sex. One couple heads out for a romantic walk across the field. When the girl refuses to put out near an old scarecrow, the guy punches her in the face. Her blood splashes the scarecrow, disappearing into it's clothing. Uh oh, that can't be good.

As per usual, the first couple to have sex are the first to suffer a casualty. The rest of the film is everyone running around, trying to figure out if the cabin owner is the killer, and trying not to die along the way.

The acting is atrocious. There were times I actually laughed out loud at the line reads. The film is supposed to take place in 1981, but we only know that because they said so. There is nothing 1980s about this movie, including the clothing and hair styles. The camera work is often very jerky, especially zooming out from closeups, and has a home movie camcorder feel to it. The behind the scenes footage shows that they did not have soft boxes or any real lighting.

Confusing scenes which go nowhere and have no impact on anything:

Bandana guy gets something several inches long stuck in his finger while in the basement. He states,"ow that smarts," loses a fingernail, and it is never mentioned again.
Although they carry in water from the well to fill the bathtub, later they use the tap and have no trouble getting water to wash a cut.
Allie has a psychic vision and passes out when touching an old book - which is barely dusty after having been in the basement for years. But its never explained why and none of her visions are useful or involved in the plot.
There is a POV shot from the vantage point of the girl in the sex scene, with the camera going up and down to simulate whats going on.
There is a cat scare.
Allie keeps taking deep breaths as if she is sniffing something, but it turns out to be just bad acting as she is trying to seem out of breath.
Cindy disappears from front door and Allie freaks out. She picks something off the floor and rubs it on her face. It turns out to be Cindy's hair, ewww!
When Allie screeches, she sounds like a cross between a crow and an old witch cackling.
Allie is making noises, but its unclear whether shes making animal noises or if they're supposed to somehow represent her fear.
Someone needs to let Allie know that screeching is not a substitute for an emotion.
Brent claims he never knew about the bulkhead that leads from the outside into the basement. But it's not hidden. There's a bulkhead outside and a door in the basement .
Why is Allie so freaked out by the old scarecrow.

Dark Harvest 2: The Maize (2004)

2011-09-04T12:28:00.000-05:00

aka The Maize: The Movie

The first thing you need to know is that there is no scarecrow in this movie. Did you hear me? No scarecrow. Not only that, but we are treated to a movie that was originally called The Maize: The Movie. Seriously? That title screams to be ignored.

You know you're in trouble when you notice that the lead actor is also listed as writer, producer, director, cameraman, and assistant to the editor. What enthusiastic amateurs often don't understand is that its a good idea to get another opinion involved to provide constructive criticism so you don't end up with an unwatchable mess.

Shy Walker has questionable psychic abilities which have previously predicted vague horrible consequences in the near future. While handing out Halloween candy, he has a vision of harm coming to his daughters. When a phone call to his wife reveals that the girls are somewhere inside a corn maize, Walker rushes rescue them.

The girls are dressed as vampires and are making a video about being lost in a corn maize. Duh. At one point, the camera zooms in and out as the older sister has the younger one scream while filming her mouth from less than a foot away. Seriously, they show footage of the girl screaming for several minutes. It gets really annoying.

The girls run into a couple of semi-creepy little girls who speak in tandem and are looking for a lost locket. After realizing these girls may not be alive, the daughters drop their camera and run off screaming. As night falls, they find themselves lost in the maize.

Luckily their father is looking for them... still. Hour after hour he walks through the corn maize trying to find them. Is it really so big that they can't hear each other yelling? Why doesn't his wife, waiting outside the entrance, ask for help from the people running the place? They'll know how to get through the maize. Or why not send out a search party?

I guess because otherwise we would only have about ten minutes worth of footage. The film is mostly people walking through the corn maize. Plus a long sequence of the father digging in the dirt. The spotlights shining on the actors are very distracting as they are supposed to be alone in the corn maize. Yet there is this spotlight only on them. When Walker is handcuffed and manages to pick the lock, I thought, "gee, it's a good thing someone is shining a light on his hands otherwise he wouldn't be able to do that."

Megafault (2009)

2011-09-03T15:02:00.004-05:00

An extremely sickly looking Brittany Murphy stars as a seismologist who has a theory about a megafault lying under the middle of the US. When a massive earthquake starts moving along this fault, Brittany gives a few words of advice, checks out the scene, and then spends the majority of the movie concentrating on the safety of her own family. She also has a fondness for the explosives expert she saved from the origin site of the earthquake, and the two use all her resources to try to save his mother as well as her family. So much for misuse of government resources.

As the quake travels across the plains with nothing to stop it, Brittany and the explosives guy attempt to use his knowledge to create a twenty five mile canyon which will hault the quakes progress.

The quake also causes a super volcano to surge under the ground, melting peoples shoes and eventually their heads. Oddly enough their clothes are intact until after their head melts.

Brittany's husband and child are given special treatment and are flown home on a military plane. The plane crashes, but somehow both end up wandering out of the woods alive. In keeping with the family tradition of self absorbtion, they do not make any attempt to check if the the pilots managed to survive also. Later husband and daughter hitch a ride with a trucker carrying a rig full of oil which is unfortunate since they're near the dreaded super volcano and must outrun the faultline which threatens to blow up the rig. The brilliant plan to unhitch the rig works. But in it's post-explosive cgi glory rolling down the road, if you'd replaced it with a cgi dinosaur on fire it would have looked very similar.

I don't know whether it was the makeup, or if Brittany was very ill or hopped up on goofballs, but her appearance is very distracting. She does not look well.

Murder Loves Killers Too (2009)

2011-09-03T14:55:00.000-05:00

A group of friends rent a cabin and head out for a weekend of partying. The cars engine blows, but luckily they are close enough to walk the rest of the way. From the outside the house looks huge, but inside is two bedrooms, bath, kitchen/living area, plus an upstairs room with a pool table.

Before our group can start partying, our killer has grabbed one of the girls. It's quick and unexpected. Everyone figures shes gone for a jog. Her boyfriend decides to go after her and meets a similar fate. The remaining three start partying and get smashed.

The killer, a benign looking middle aged man, starts picking them off one by one, and very shortly we are down to our final girl. She manages to hide from the killer, even though there aren't many places to hide. Ultimately she does some really stupid things which put her right in the killers hands. Isn't that always the way?

The last part of the movie heads in a completely different direction, which is when it loses all its momentum. It might have been okay if it was shorter or if the end wasn't fairly predictable.

The most ridiculous part of the whole movie is that even though there are signs that someone else is staying at the cabin, they completely ignore this. There is a car in the driveway, the door is unlocked, the door to the deck is open, the bed appears to be slept in, there is remnants of a cup of coffee, and the fridge is stocked with food. One person questions it, but the others couldn't care less. Silly college kids, you die now.

Witchboard III: The Possession (1995)

2011-09-03T14:49:00.001-05:00

When his landlord shows unemployed stock broker Brian a Ouija board that he claims can predict which stocks to buy, Brian is understandably skeptical. But when the stock takes off, Brian heads back for another Ouija session. To Brian's surprise, his landlord gives him a ring and then commits suicide by jumping off the balcony.

After the funeral, Brian steals the Ouija board, borrows fifty thousand dollars from a loan shark, and tries to make a killing on the market. Unfortunately he does not have the sixty two thousand five hundred dollars that he needs to pay back within twenty four hours. When the loan shark's goon tries to chop off Brian's finger, blood is spilled on the box housing the Ouija and Brian is the only one who leaves the office alive.

Brian's attempt to destroy the Ouija only succeeds in an accident which stops his heart. His wife Julie calls paramedics who seemingly resuscitate him. However Brian has changed. At first it's little things like his hairstyle. But soon Julie is wondering who this person is, as he hits on her best friend right in front of her. Shortly after this she discovers her husband is actually stuck in the mirror and his body is inhabited by demon who intends to impregnate her. Oh the humanity!

The Curse of Lizzie Borden

2011-08-21T19:59:00.000-05:00

Cassie is taking a summer class on American Folklore where one of the study topics is Lizzie Borden. Her professor decides to take the class on a completely pointless field trip to Josiah Moodys house so Moody can test out his tourist rap. His house is a tourist attraction with original artifacts from Lizzie and Moody wants to practice his patter to make sure people are willing to pay for a tour.

Moody is planning a Halloween tour with someone dressed as Lizzie with an ax. Cassie is offered the job and immediately moves into Moodys house. Soon she intermittently believes she actually is Lizzie. She talks strangely, alienates her boyfriend, and decides to use a real ax for a prop.

Moody thinks she really into her character until he awakes in the middle of the night to find her standing over him. Next the viewer thrills to the sight of an overweight man moving slowly down the stairs as Cassie treads slowly behind him with an ax.

When Lizzie possesses Cassie, she claims she will have her revenge on the town folk for accusing her of a crime she didn't commit and ruining her life. Then she starts killing her friends, even though I'm not sure how that figures into her pact with Satan. So.... Lizzie's revenge is to kill innocent college students who don't live anywhere near her hometown? It's not like she's taking her revenge out on anyone's descendants. These are just a bunch of stupid college kids.

Funniest lines -

Cassie stating that she hates her stepmom because, "She's like half my age and a total bitch." So... her stepmom is ten?

When Cassie tells her roommate shes moving out and staying with Moody, her roommate responds, "I can't live here all alone. It's a two bedroom."

This a is super low budget movie and it shows. It was so bad that I got some enjoyment out of it because it's so ridiculous. Here is just some of the silly things I observed:

Moodys death involves him saying (not yelling), "Ahhhhh" after he is hit with the ax.
Every time the ax hits him, there is a metallic sound like a trampoline or old springs. It made me laugh out loud.
Lizzie sells her soul to the devil for revenge because shes innocent.
The professor warns the class that Moody is eccentric, and in this case eccentric means can't act.
Moody mispronounces Massachusetts.
I'm still not sure if Moodys hair is a wig.
the reenactment of the killings is historically inaccurate, yet there is no reason for changing the murder locations.
Whenever some is killed, cups full of fake blood are thrown from off screen onto the people and walls.
Why does Cassie move into Moodys when she takes the job? Couldn't she remain in her own apartment? And what sort of nut moves into the house of someone they just met?
No tourist attraction would leave a tour guide without any training alone on the first day of the job.
They're using a real ax in a haunted tourist attraction. What could possibly go wrong?
Cassie claims she is Lizzie, but also says she invited everyone to the house because they're her closest friends - which is it?
When Lizzie hits a girl, there is blood on her ax. When she raises the ax again, it is clean.
The three stooges routine - two duck, third gets hit by ax - bad writing or a tribute?
When Cassie is elbowed in the face and drops the ax, no one picks it up. Duhr!
Her friends state they are worried about Cassie and agree to meet. They don't.

Killer Bash: Vengeance Never Dies (2005)

2011-08-20T21:36:00.001-05:00

In 1975 five frat boys accidentally cause the death of geeky Robert Hyde in a prank gone wrong. Thirty years later, Becky Jekyll is studying Chemistry and Microbiology, and ends up with Roberts books. Not sure why these books are still being used since there have been many advances in science during the past thirty years, and Becky will surely fail her classes by studying them.

Becky finds a map in one of the books which leads to the basement where she stumbles across Roberts class ring. Somehow Roberts spirit takes possession of Becky and uses his supernatural powers to seek revenge on the frat boys who bullied him. Luckily for Robert, all the frat boys have sons who are all the same age, attend the very same college as their fathers did, and have pledged the same frat. What are the odds?

Roberts spirit makes Becky's eyes glow red when she is about to kill. All the deaths seem like accidents, except for the fact that all the guys belong to one frat.

There is plenty of padding with frat parties, music, and dancing.

The movie is full of ridiculous-ness:

Becky's last name is Jekyll and Roberts last name is Hyde
when Becky is possessed by nerdy Robert, she goes from a mousy, shy pariah to a popular hot chick - since when do dead nerds know how to give girls make overs?
the weight lifting equipment is located outside on the lawn
the soccer team practice near the weights in a common area next to a sidewalk, not on a soccer field
Craig is deathly allergic to peanuts, yet the granola bar he eats appears to be covered in nuts, which he doesn't notice
the odds of the five frat guys all having kids the same age is astronomical
we only know it's 1975 at the beginning because they tell us it is - you can't tell from the fashions or haircuts
Argh! What is up with that DVD cover? Her face is totally photoshopped onto that neck.

Vicious (2003)

2011-08-20T17:44:00.000-05:00

An elite military squad comprised of two soldiers is called in to eliminate Kane, a rogue agent who is out of control. Uh oh, this isn't going to end well since he's in charge of Project Carnivore. The soldiers are supposed to keep a low profile, but they wear military outfits, berets, and a strange black and red patch. They are far from low profile.

Meanwhile three friends reluctantly go camping in the woods with one guys girlfriend in tow. The girlfriend has a bunch of stupid rules to keep the guys in line, and seems to hate her boyfriends buddies. His friends are not happy that she's managed to guilt trip her way into coming on their weekend getaway.

Now that conflict has been established, we know that soon the group will splinter making it easier for the monster to eat them. Yes that's right, because Project Carnivore involves Tom Savini feeding people to a wretched cgi monster. Hold onto your hats and sit back for a trip of horror that's about as exciting as the monster on the DVD cover - and good luck.

Midnight Movie (2008)

2011-08-08T18:43:00.001-05:00

Years ago Ted Radford made a movie in which he played the killer. His obsession with the film drove him to be locked in an asylum. The doctors believe that if they let him watch the film, it will ease his obsession. However it has the opposite effect as the next thing you know there is a massacre at the hospital and Ted has disappeared.

A movie house decides to have a midnight showing of Radfords movie. The doctor and police detective who were around five years ago when the Radford escaped believe that this may get Radford out of hiding, if he's still alive.

Some kids in the audience see their friend being killed on the movie screen, and think it is an elaborate prank. Through some sort of unexplained weirdness, live footage of the murders in the theater appear in the movie. When the film looks like it's starting to melt, it becomes the killers point of view which shows what is occurring at that moment in time.

When they finally figure out that the murders are real and happening in the theater, they freak out. There is no escape from the theater, as the doors are locked and there is no cell reception. The detective and doctor show up at the theater hoping the killer will show and they can recapture him.

Since the killer comes out of the movie, why not just shut off the projector? They don't. They keep running around in a panic. Eventually someone figures out this would be a good idea. They shut off the film, but soon evil starts it up again and locks them out of the projection booth.

The next stupid idea is that since the killers view is on the screen, one of them will stay behind to watch the film, while the others try to escape. This way they can keep an eye on him and maybe use his POV against him as they'll know where he is. Of course this doesn't work either and there are more deaths.

The group keeps splitting up, even though they've figured out that the killer only individuals, not groups of people. Also odd - the movie theater has an amazing amount of long hallways.

Bigfoot (2006)

2011-08-08T17:29:00.000-05:00

After his father dies, Jack and his daughter Charlie move back to Jack's home town and into his fathers house. Bob, the local Sheriff, is Jacks best friend. The town has recently been plagued by deer mutilations and the disappearance of some town folk. One of the old codgers in the local bar reckons its due to Bigfoot, and laughter ensues.

When Jack sees a huge hairy monster one night, he theorizes that Bigfoot may be the cause of the killings in town. No one believes him. So he suits up in military garb and heads off to fight Bigfoot. This is completey ridiculous as he has no plan as to how to succeed and only carries flares and guns. During their fight, Jack blows stuff up, but Bigfoot remains unscathed.

There is no explanation as to why Bigfoot has suddenly started killing people. Since we know the creature was in the area at least sixty years earlier, what happened to make him start eating the livers of human beings? Jack comes across as the guy who remains calm even in the face of crisis, but then you just realize it's just wooden acting.

Wedding Slashers (2006)

2011-08-08T10:14:00.000-05:00

Jenna dreams of getting married, but she's afraid to commit as everyone she loves ends up dead. When Alex proposes, Jenna agrees although she questions whether it is a good idea. At the church, Jenna starts getting excited as the wedding is only one hour away and nothing bad has happened yet. Then out the window of the church she spies a large man in a mask carrying a knife.

Seems Jenna lied about her past as everyone thought her family was dead. In reality, they are an inbred hillbilly clan who have been looking for Jenna since she ran away. People marry within the family and she is promised to her cousin. So anyone who Jenna gets attached to is promptly eliminated.

Jenna gives her cellphone to her bridesmaid, tells her to get out, and asks her to tell everyone the wedding is canceled. The bridesmaid makes the calls from her car until a hillbilly kills a member of the wedding party on the hood of her car. So does she drive off to save herself and get help for those in the church? Nope. She gets out of the car and runs into the woods at the urging of the person she's speaking to on Jenna's cell phone. Good god, no sense of self preservation with that girl. Then we get to thrill to her in high heels slowly picking her way up the dirt path on a hill while an overweight hillbilly in a mask tries to catch up to her.

When I watched the trailer, I knew this would be bad, but there was some really bad acting so I thought it might be funny. No such luck. This is just ridiculous, although I was happy to see Richard Lynch even though I wish he'd had better material.

Stupidest line-

"If you ever doubt my love for you, just remember I sank a meat cleaver into the neck of a guy I've known since 5th grade so he wouldn't take you from me." - Alex

The worst part about that line? It was uttered without any emotion. Plus he really didn't need to kill his friend, he could have hit him over the head to knock him out. And why the hell does a church have a meat cleaver just sitting on a counter?

The trailer has lots of people running from the church and people inside screaming. But neither of those scenes are in the movie. Only the wedding party had shown up at the church.

There is a long pointless scene of two hillbillys arguing about an inane topic. Later we get the same from two different hillbillys. This just serves to pad the film and provide a way for Alex to sneak up on them.

The hillbillys end up in a cabin at the end, which begs the question if you've run away from your hillbilly family, why would you get married at a church within walking distance of their cabin? Also why would you let your picture be taken and put in the paper for your engagement? You can say no. Not everyone does it.

Also why doesn't anyone have a cell phone? The only characters who have them are ones where it is convenient to the plot. And when they hide in the church, no one looks for a phone to call 911. Since they hole up in the church during the day, and don't leave the church until after dark, you'd think at some point, one of them would have decided to look for a phone.

Death Sport (1978)

2011-08-06T17:20:00.000-05:00

In the future, there is war, mutants, and something called Death Sport. It's never made perfectly clear what the rules are, other than its a sport where you die. They ride Death Machines, which are motorcycles with cheap-o metal face plates and futuristic controls on the dash - that's right the cycles have a dashboard.

There isn't really a cohesive plot. Our cast of characters are either bad guys - the power mad leader Lord Zirpola; and Ankar (played by the 1970s/1980s quintessential villain Richard Lynch) - or good guys - nomad Kaz, female Deneer, Lord Zirpolas doctor (who dared to tell him he was ill) and the doctors son. The good guys are captured by the villains and forced to participate in Death Sport.

Of course, none of them want to be in Death Sport since there is death involved. So they formulate a plan to break out. Once free from the force field, they travel across the country to rescue a young girl who was kidnapped from Deneers tribe. This involves heading into the mutant caves to see if she is still alive.

The movie is full of motorcycle riding, chase scenes, futuristic bike sounds, more riding, more chase scenes, and explosions. In fact there are so many explosions that you'll start being surprised when things don't blow up. It's cheesy, it's funny, it's stupid, and it's sometimes entertaining.

Ninjas Vs. Vampires (2010)

2011-08-06T16:38:00.000-05:00

When Aaron confesses his love to best friend Alex, things go horribly wrong. First she rejects him and then they are attacked by lame looking vampires. Out of nowhere some ninjas show up to save them, but then disappear with Alex. When Aaron finds her back at her house, she has no memory of anything after she rejected him. Her memory troubles continue as she can't remember their conversation while they're speaking.

Aaron manages to find the ninjas household where he learns they protect people from vampire attacks. The leader of the vampires, Seth (who looks like a frat boy), is planning to destroy the ninjas and that would leave the humans completely vulnerable. Aaron convinces the ninjas to train him to become a ninja so he can protect Alex.

The vampires costumes are bizarre. I'm not sure if they were sponsored by a costume shop, or just had access to all these outfits and decided to use them. But there are random outfits that make it look like costume party. Sometimes the vampire fangs appear to be too big for their mouths, which is awkward when they speak as it just looks ridiculous.

There is a training montage when they teach Aaron how to fight. At one point we are treated to Aaron using nunchuks which was great as he actually knows how to use them.

When the movie started, I was worried. As the credits roll, some stupid chick in her underwear and a twilight shirt is running through the woods after dark and is killed. The video is not well lit. Then the stupid looking vampires in the first attack almost made us shut the movie off. But we decided to stick it out a little longer which ended up being a good decision. Although it has some problems, it also has a lot of charm and we ended up enjoying it. It's much better than most really low budget movies.

Brain Dead (2007)

2011-08-06T15:59:00.000-05:00

A tiny meteor plummets to Earth, slams into a fisherman's forehead, and comes to rest in his cranial cavity. By the time his friend runs over to him, he's changed into a zombie-like monster, rips his friends head open and eats his brain.

The creature spews a thick black oily substance from it's mouth which can be used to turn its victims into monsters. If you manage to kill one of these monsters, the little alien slug inside them needs to find a new host.

Into the woods stomps our cast of characters who all end up in the same isolated cabin. First are two escaped convicts (one a murderer, the other a petty criminal handcuffed to the murderer when he made his escape). They are looking for tools to remove their handcuffs. Next we have two lost female hikers who are hoping for directions or a place to spend the night. Lastly, a Reverend and his assistant who are stranded after their car crashes after the Reverend makes a pass at the young lady.

The special effects are well done and there's some gore. The comedy often falls flat, but the movie is so much better than I expected. Definitely some surprises as far as effects go although the story is rather predictable. One thing which was funny is that the killers tattoos appear to have been done with a Sharpie. It looks okay for what it is, but it's still funny.

Van Helsing (2004)

2011-07-30T13:41:00.001-05:00

Van Helsing fights Frankenstein, werewolves, Mr. Hyde, Igor, and Dracula in a botched attempt at a vampire story, with extremely distracting CGI. The problem with movies such as this is that there is so much emphasis on the cgi, and while it looks cool, it also looks fake. It is so obvious that Van Helsing is not actually interacting with Mr. Hyde that it distracts one from enjoying the scene.

As Van Helsing attempts to fight everyone under the sun, Anna and her brother make a poorly planned and ineffective werewolf trap, in which her brother is bitten. Anna is wearing makeup, has styled hair and is in high heels, but she can still run faster than a werewolf. How odd.

Poncey old Dracula walks the floor, walls, and ceilings of his castle while his winged vampire women wreak havoc on the village due to Van Helsing's interference with a sacrifice. Dracula has tons of vampire babies hanging from the ceiling in Killer Clowns From Outer Space type cocoons. He also has minions that look like the dwarfs from Phantasm.

Anna won't let Van Helsing kill her werewolf brother. When Van Helsing protests that her brother will kill people, Anna screams out the lamest excuse ever, which is that it's not his fault.

There is a triumphant musical score, people keep losing their guns, and a carriage blows up with stakes on the seat which throws the stakes into the air, skewering a vampire chick.

Death Clique (2005)

2011-07-28T18:22:00.001-05:00

A group of friends head out of town to spend the weekend helping one clean out her grandmothers isolated house. Just before they leave, they learn that Bobby Nichols, an outcast at their school who was arrested for killing his entire family, has been released from jail due to lack of evidence.

The first night the group decides to play Truth or Dare and finds out that they all had some kind of connection to Bobby. When one girl reveals that she was secretly dating Bobby, and could have provided him with an alibi when he was accused of killing his family, the group becomes afraid that Bobby might want revenge.

Shortly after this one of the guys is dared to go into the woods to pick a handful of wild flowers. Seriously? What kind of lame dare is that? It's stupid since it's night, and he doesn't have a flashlight. He wanders deep into the woods and is attacked. During the fight it's too dark to tell who is who, so you have no idea who is getting beaten up.

The kids aren't as mortified as they should be when they find out their friend knew Bobby was innocent of mass murder, but let him go to jail anyway leaving the real killer was on the loose. This is low budget, low production values, and mediocre acting.

Prison of the Psychotic Damned

2011-07-28T14:54:00.002-05:00

When I saw the trailer for this movie, I was convinced I should pass on it. But then the footage showed the characters at the Buffalo Central Terminal and I had to see it. I should have gone with my first instinct.

In a move sure to destroy her career, a professor brings a rag tag bunch of misfits to the abandoned terminal building to hunt ghosts and make a documentary on their search.

Let's meet our cast of characters.

Professor Rayna Bloom - seems no nonsense at first, but eventually you realize she's kinda psycho. You can tell she's the professor as she has her hair up and wears glasses.
Jason, the camera guy - immature, delusional about his effect on woman (it's not good), and thinks fart jokes are hysterical.
Nessie, Rayna's friend - wants to help Rayna with her work, dresses and acts like a six year old, but looks forty. Her mittens have strings on them going into her coat sleeves. It's never clear whether she's retarded or if there is something else wrong with her cranial functioning, but at least she's usually happy.
Aurora, the psychic - the least obnoxious character as she has no personality, but she has a legitimate reason to be included in the ghost hunt.
Kansas, condescending goth - nasty, bitchy, antagonistic loser who is only there because her daddy makes her do stuff to keep her trust fund. Has no redeeming qualities and her inclusion in this excursion shows that Rayna has no powers of critical thinking and will definitely lose her funding.

The group has never worked together before, don't get along well, and three of the five have no idea how to work any of the ghost hunting equipment. Jason has to explain what the equipment is and what it does. They don't get any instructions on how to use it, but that's okay since the ghost hunt doesn't begin until we're almost an hour into the movie.

Nessie turns out to be a bad choice as a helper. She freaks out after seeing a weird looking guy, which everyone convinces her is a homeless guy. But the viewer knows he isn't due to the bloody mess that is his face. Later when Kansas sees someone who they assume is the same guy, Nessie runs away and says she can't do the ghost hunt. Seriously? What does she think they are doing there? If she can't handle being with five other people in the day time, what is she going to do when it's night and they find something paranormal?

To make it seem spookier than a closed railroad terminal, the story goes that hundreds of people have died in the building. The Professor states it was turned into a prison and an asylum where doctors operated on people. Also a serial killer took up residence there and increased the body count, so it's the most haunted place around.

There are flashbacks that have sound effects which are hilarious, even though they aren't supposed to be funny, such as the sound of the guys head hitting the desk. The flashbacks are annoying as they are cliche stuff that filmmakers do with the sudden jarring loud sounds intended to make you jump.

The opening scene in the movie is completely pointless. If you left it on the cutting room floor, it would not make one difference, except to make the movie more enjoyable. The film opens with 10+ minutes of Kansas alone in her room, dancing, reading bad poetry, cutting her wrists, and sitting in the bathtub. It adds nothing to the storyline and doesn't provide any explanation for why she is such a jerk.

Also there is a weird scene where Rayna destroys Jasons cell phone after it goes off. She insists there are no cell phones in the building during the investigation. You'd expect it to come up later as a plot point, but phones are never mentioned again. I suppose it's just a way to show us why no one used their phones, but you would think the characters would mention it.

But the main problem with the movie is that when you have unlikeable characters, especially those who are nasty human beings that you wouldn't want to spend even one minute in the same room with, the viewer doesn't care when they die. In fact, I was rooting for Kansas to get it. She was so annoying. I felt slightly sorry for Nessie as she was so simple. But when Jason thinks Nessie has gone off on her own because she wants to have sex with him, you just wonder what sort of an idiot he really is. So much stupidity.

Octaman (1971)

2011-07-25T16:56:00.000-05:00

Researchers in Mexico conducting experiments to measure radiation discover a strange little Octopus creature. After being unable to get funding for more research, the group turns to a promoter who hopes to capture a larger creature that he can make money off by charging people to see it.

After they capture some small creatures, a large rubber suited monster that appears to be an Octopus who walks on land, comes to get the little creatures back. The Octaman walks around a lot and waves its tentacles, but they are not capable of really doing anything so it isn't very threatening. In fact, it's a bit like a larger, less kid friendly version of the costumes for Sigmund and the Sea Monsters.

The film is often dark and there are many scenes where it's supposed to be night but it's daytime, or it's supposed to be day but

it's night. So there's some continuity issues.

The creatures eyes remind me of sparkly Candlepin bowling balls and it's mouth reminds me of the Salt Creature from Star Trek.

It's slow moving and can be tedious, but I love the Octaman costume. It's nice to go back to the days when monsters were men who wore rubber monster suits rather than CGI monsters.

Splatter University (1984)

2011-07-25T15:57:00.001-05:00

When Julie Parker is hired to teach, Father Jansen tells her that there was a murder in her classroom and she is replacing the victim. Julie is unnerved, but accepts the job as she can't afford to refuse it.

Her students are unresponsive and uninterested in her lectures. She befriends a female teacher and starts dating Mark, another teacher at the school.

Soon the killer is on the loose again and Mark is a suspect as he dated the previous victim. When Julie asks him about her, he says he barely knew her. Suspicious.

I don't like when films start with a story, then via a caption on screen we are alerted that it is years later. This one is bizarre in that after the first scene where a dangerous patient escapes from the psycho ward, there are three captions in short succession. The captions are:

"Three years later - St. Tristans University" (after the psycho escapes)
"Next Semester, Yesterday" - Huh? (after the teacher is killed)
"Three Weeks Later" (after the new teacher is hired)

That's just weird. Another movie with a twist ending that you may or may not see coming.

Plaga Zombie (1997)

2011-07-25T14:25:00.000-05:00

When several college students are infected with an alien virus, it quickly spreads and turns people into zombies. Med student Bill, computer geek Max, and ex-wrestler John West combine forces to fight the zombies who are overrunning the city. The action takes place within an apartment building, as opposed to Plaga Zombie: Mutant Zone whose background is the town.

This is true low budget film making as it was shot on a single camcorder by twenty year olds. While that type of description strikes fear in my heart, this is decent and was shot better than many no budget movies. There is lots of gore, but it's really basic effects made with whatever they could get their hands on. Not all of it is great, but some of it is pretty gross looking. The make up appears to be greasepaint, although IMDB states it was cake frosting. I suppose it could have been.

The first movie in what was planned to be a trilogy, it is available on the 2 dvd set with Plaga Zombie: Mutant Zone. It is much better than I would suspect a group of friends could do with a video camera. There's a ton of crappy movies these days because everyone has access to cameras that shoot video and editing software. It would take more effort back when these were made, which culled out some of the awful and inept potential filmmakers.

Dark Ride

2011-07-22T17:30:00.000-05:00

Twenty years ago, twins were murdered inside a dark ride by a psycho who had taken up residence there. In the present day, the ride is due to be reopened. A group of teens in a van going to spring break find a brochure for the grand opening and decide to sneak in to see it. On the way, they stop to pick up a female hitchhiker who is pretty nutty in a seemingly harmless way.

The teens decide this would be a great place to spend the night as it will save money on a hotel room. They sneak into the dark ride and start exploring. (Technically it isn't a dark ride anymore since the track has been removed.) The group has fun until they realize they are not the only ones there and the door they came in is now locked from the outside.

In a bad stroke of luck, the killer has escaped the asylum that very night and is ready to continue his killing streak. What better victims than a group of kids who break into a place they shouldn't be?

Evil Weed (2009)

2011-07-22T16:04:00.000-05:00

Emily and Danielle bring their friends up to the Hamptons for the weekend. One of their friends brings a bag of weed that has been tainted by an unknown creature. It's not real clear what the creature is or why it killed the Mexican field workers. But there's Mexican folklore about radiation and a creature from atomic fallout. So I guess it's a fairly recent legend since atomic fallout hasn't been around that long.

Whoever smokes the weed turns into a weird monster with stupid teeth and huge fingernails. For some unknown reason - in order to advance the plot? - everyone keeps hiding in the shed. It seems ridicluous as there's only one way out and there are no windows to see whats going on outside, but there you go. Stupid kids and their stupid contaminated weed.

Don't Open Till Christmas (1984)

2011-07-22T15:29:00.001-05:00

Kates father is killed at a Christmas party while dressed as Santa. Even though her boyfriend Cliff was there, he brings her to a friends studio for a photo shoot where, in order to help her through the holidays, he pressures her to pose naked with a female model. When the model whips out a Santa suit, Kate bolts. Great boyfriend that Cliff is, he decides that Kate is a pain in the ass and what he could use is a sexy Santa.

After both of them wander outside, the model flashes Cliff. The police observe this action. Cliff and the model run in opposite directions and the model ends up in an alley with the killer.

Though numerous people wearing Santa suits are murdered, the police still can't determine the killers motive or pattern. Durhr. The possibility that the killer is the lead detective, boyfriend Cliff, or the newspaper reporter keeps you guessing.

Bloody Murder (2000)

2011-07-19T18:23:00.000-05:00

Counselors arrive at Camp Placid Pines to prepare for the campers. Most of them are friends, but there is bad blood between a couple of guys who were on the football team together.

The first night they decide to play a game called Bloody Murder. The rules are simple. The person who is it hides while the rest of the players break up into groups to find him. Once found, whoever is it screams Bloody Murder and everyone must get back to home base before being tagged. If you're tagged, you're it.

There is a legend of a kid named Trever Moorhouse who supposedly wore a hockey mask and killed campers with a chainsaw. Some of the counselors are a little leary of running around the woods at night, but with peer pressure in force, they all decide to risk it. Later Jason scares Julie by pretending to be Trevor, complete with hockey mask and chainsaw.

The next day Jason has disappeared. The head counselor seems completely unconcerned about his missing counselor. In fact it takes several more counselors disappearing before he decides to do anything.

Some observations (besides the fact that the killer's appearance and location are right of out Friday the 13th):

Whitney can't swim. But Dean takes her out in a boat and dumps her overboard because he's a dick. Once she's safe, she is amazingly calm for someone who almost drowned.
Why is there bad blood between Brad and Jason? The explanation is that Brad was the last person Jason competed against before he blew out his knee. So nothing happened to cause this feud?!
Jason seems really immature, but there is nothing to show he has a history of violent behavior until someone mentions it.
There is an old guy named Henry who shows up out of nowhere and says they're all doomed.
The camp is said to be isolated with no one living near it. Yet later when someone asks if anyone has seen Henry lately, the response is that he's probably at his house over there.
The camp has Jarts with metal points.
Whitney goes to the kitchen and grabs a box labeled "Snack."

Chopping Mall (1986)

2011-07-19T16:44:00.000-05:00

aka Killbot

I love the feel of the 1980s slasher films. Maybe it's because they weren't all about gore. Maybe it's because everything hadn't already been done before. Also I like the old artwork better than the generic type of cover art a lot of horror movies have now. Not that the stories or characters were all that brilliant, but they had a charm that current films don't have.

Securetronics are hired to protect the mall with their new line of robot security forces called The Protectors. As the developer meets with the store owners in the mall, he assures them that "absolutely nothing can go wrong."

The robots will zoom around the empty mall after it closes, and if they encounter anyone, they will request their ID badge. As long as they show the robot their badge, they will be allowed to go on their way.

The first night the robots are put into service there is a lighting storm that hits the mall, short circuits the control panel, and causes the robots to become killbots. As if that isn't bad enough, it is also the night that a group of teens who work at the furniture store decide to sneak in after hours to have a party with some girls. As is expected, carnage ensues.

Johnny Splatter (2009)

2011-07-19T16:17:00.000-05:00

Corey Feldman is Johnny Splatter, a rock star who kills himself, intending to come back from the dead and seek revenge on his enemies, who have been invited to the reading of his will.

This short film is thirty minutes and involves Roger Corman. Its a fairly standard guy comes back from the grave for revenge type of film.

Silent Scream (2005)

2011-07-16T18:02:00.000-05:00

To thank his students for helping with his research, Dr. Banon gives them the keys to his island cabin for the weekend. Before you start thinking beaches, the film takes place in Michigan in the middle of winter, so think ice, snow, and freezing temperatures. After class most of the kids take a school van and one kids car out to the island. Not sure why they take the extra car other than for plot convenience as there is plenty of room in the van.

Shortly after they get there, they break into different groups either to make out or sit by the bonfire. It's pretty fun until a mystery killer wearing a parka walks out of the woods and starts picking them off. In fact, most of them are dead within several minutes.

The next day the rest of the class arrives, but can only find Mark and he has no idea where anyone else has gone. On the way there, Nicole spotted Derek's car sitting by the side of the road. She heads back to see if anyone is there and finds Steve who is freaked out because Derek is dead.

By the time they get back to the cabin, two more friends are dead. Immediately suspicion falls on Mark as no one knows where he is, and everyone who came with him is missing. After a long discussion, they come to the conclusion that they should leave, but by that time both vans tires are flat.

Again the killer in the parka steps out of nowhere. Mark ends up rescuing Steve as the killer has injured him, and they barricade themselves in the cabin to wait for morning. With Nicole being a black belt in jujisu, you'd think that was some type of foreshadowing for some ass kicking. Nope. She's completely useless and flails around in the snow when the killer shows up. The ending has several twists.

There is ridiculous dialogue where Mark comes back to the cabin and instead of telling him their friends have been killed upstairs, they say "go look upstairs, Mark." Wouldn't it be natural to warn him so that he doesn't have to see that instead of discovering their bodies by sending him upstairs?

Also if everyone in a class has the same nightmare about going to the island and dying, wouldn't you decide to maybe not go to the island at all? And if you did go, and it looked exactly like in your dream, wouldn't your intution tell you that this was a bad idea and you needed to leave?

Beneath the Surface (2007)

2011-07-16T17:49:00.000-05:00

Emo kid Ethan is in love with cheerleader Kayleh who is dating a total tool. Ethan and Kayleh used to be best friends when they were little kids. When they start studying together for a test, they find that they still enjoy each others company and start spending lots of time together. This doesn't go over well with her boyfriend.

When Kahleh dies under what Ethan believes are suspicious circumstances during a party at her boyfriends home, Ethan is overwhelmed by grief. Although it's ruled a suicide, Ethan believes that her boyfriend is responsible for Kaylehs death.

After becoming friendly with his new neighbor, an eccentric anthropologist with an interest in voodoo, Ethan decides to dig up Kayleh and bring her back to life. However once the potion takes effect, Kayleh is a mindless shell. She will obey only Ethan and only do exactly what he asks her to do.

This is a decent low budget picture, although if you're looking for gore you won't find it here. The sound is kind of annoying as the music is loud and the dialogue low, so I was constantly turning the volume up and down.

Tintorera: Killer Shark (1977)

2011-07-16T17:16:00.000-05:00

I'm always up for a killer shark movie, but I could not watch this. The biggest problems with Tintorera? It is incredibly boring, but more importantly they actually kill sharks, fish, and turtles. I'm all for the death of fake sharks, but when I'm seeing someone shoot a shark in the head with a speargun, well thats just not what I want to see. And why kill a turtle? It's minding it's own business, then wham, it's dead. Geez.... just be prepared to watch living creatures get killed and a story line that moves slowly and goes nowhere.

Robo Geisha (2009)

2011-07-13T15:19:00.000-05:00

Two sisters are abducted by a steel company to join a team of cyber geisha assassins. The older sister has always been cruel to the younger girl and treats her like a servant. But the younger one is gifted in fighting skills and surpasses her sister in training.

Evil is represented by the Goblin Squad. They shoot shurikens out of their butts. The younger sister becomes a hidden geisha who works from the shadows to fight corruption. She has a buzz saw in her mouth and Geisha Napalm shoots out of guns in her wig. Between the everyone, there are guns in chests and knees, and swords in armpits and butts.

The trailer is awesome. It made me want to see the movie and while parts of the film were cool, it wasn't that good.

Best dialogue:

"There's shrimp in my eye! I can't see!"

"A giant castle shaped like a robot? It can't be!"

"I too have an ass sword."- "It's embarrassing."

Dreamaniac (1986)

2011-07-12T20:59:00.001-05:00

Two sisters throw a super lame party for their sorority at the house of one's boyfriend. Adam, who writes heavy metal songs, summons a succubus who shows up at the party, has sex with him, and starts killing the guests. Adam is bewitched so he has no problem with the deaths of the guests. There is only male nudity (butts) and the females only strip down to bras.

Adam is supposed to be into heavy metal. But there is only one time in the movie when he holds a guitar and it is acoustic. He hits the strings, which are out of tune, contemplates the noise he's heard, then looks inspired and writes something down in his notebook. Ridiculous.

The Vanguard (2008)

2011-07-12T20:58:00.001-05:00

In post apocalyptic 2015, zombies called biosyns walk the earth. Max, our hero who also happens to be deaf, has lived alone in the woods for five years. He rides a souped up low rider bicycle, and looks like a hipster Rasputin.

The world is in chaos with only small pockets of survivors. Besides the zombies, there is a conglomerate that wants to kill Max as he is a threat to their business and a resistance movement looking for a cure for the biosyn infection.

Max joins forces with a brainwashed soldier sent out to kill him, and two scientists searching for the resistance. The group must fight their way through the zombies roaming the countryside and stay one step ahead of the killers looking for Max.

The problem is it's not that interesting, and lots of things don't make sense.

Mom (1991)

2011-07-11T18:09:00.000-05:00

Sweet old lady Emily Dwyer rents a room in her house to creepy oddball Nestor. When Emily decides to invite Nestor to dinner for a home cooked meal to get to know him better, it back fires when he turns into a monster and bites her.

Reporter Clay Dwyer goes to check on his Mom after no one has seen her for a few days and finds her sick in bed with Nestor taking care of her. Although he's uncomfortable with Nestor, he heads off to work, telling her he'll be back later to check on her.

When he returns that night, he sees Mom and Nestor getting into a taxi and follows them to a run down part of town. He observes them heading down an alley with a homeless person, goes to investigate and finds them eating the poor man. Horrified Clay runs off, but later returns to the scene on his job as a news reporter.

Clay confronts his mother, has a showdown with Nestor, and tries to keep his Mom from killing anyone else. He becomes consumed with keeping his mother locked in her room so she can do no more damage. But there are instances when she manages to get out and since Clay won't feed her, she's so hungry she has to take matters into her own hands. Clay is seen several times at murder scenes and ends up disposing of evidence which makes one wonder if he will eventually be the scapegoat for the crimes.

Jeanne Bates is fantastic as Mom. Even though she is a killer, she was an extremely sympathetic character. While her son means well, he was pretty annoying and I had to root for his Mom because she did such a great job with the role. There's some blood and guts, but more often it's about the the story than the gore.

Russell Mulcahys Tale of the Mummy (1998)

2011-07-10T18:56:00.001-05:00

An archaeologic expedition discovers the tomb of Talos which has a warning on it's door. Ignoring the warning, all are turned essentially to pottery or sand (which is pretty cool), although Christopher Lee manages to blow up the entrance before literally falling to pieces.

Years later his diary of the dig ends up in the hands of Sam Turkel, who heads out with another team to uncover the unseen tomb. The team wears hazmat suits and manages to open the door without dying (always a plus). However, Brad has visions and goes crazy, and Burke, in an incredibly stupid move, climbs into the tomb to grab an amulet and falls to his death.

The antiquities are brought back to England for an exhibit. The opening of the exhibit correspond to a series of murders in which different body parts are stolen from the victims. A detective teams with Sam to try to solve the mystery of what is happening, as insane Brad insists the alignment of the planets signals the end of the world and the return of Talos.

The film features cgi mummy wrappings flying around, and they look really bad. We couldn't even tell it was supposed to be bandages. When one character held up a piece of it, it appeared to be a piece of tape.

It's a mediocre movie, but not a bad viewing as long as you discount.... oh never mind, it was okay. There are a few special effects that are neat, mostly in the beginning, while others like the flying wrappings are horrible. Even seeing the wrappings lying in the sarcophagus, we had no idea what it was supposed to be because it looked that bad.

Universal Soldiers (2007)

2011-07-10T18:26:00.003-05:00

A professor develops the ultimate solder, which in this type of movie always equates to an unstoppable killing machine. When things go horribly wrong, as they do, and the soldiers break free from the lab, a team of Marines is called in to take control.

Unfortunately this is the worst Marine unit ever and all they do is bitch, moan, and freak out about the cyborg soldiers who will probably kill them. Plus they argue about whether they should head to the amory for weapons, or to the lab for access to the mainframe. Uh, wouldn't that be the call of whoever is in command? Last time I checked, military units were not democracies.

The Marines are shooting randomly at the cyborgs even though they have limited ammunition, and are running around the countryside trying to keep from getting killed. Sound exciting? Well it's not because it's all a whole lot of nothing happening except a bunch of unlikable characters -who are in no way Marines except for their generic military fatigues- whining and arguing about everything. They do not know how to hold their guns and they move like a group of civilians with no military training who have never even seen movie or news footage of soldiers.

Plus they are constantly freaking out about everything, spend most of their time arguing, feeling sorry for themselves, and being insubordinate. Seriously? They would not have survived in the Marines. These are not the best or even the adequate. These are the incompetent.

When they get a call on the walkie talkie that a rescue team is on the island, they rejoice (which is great as they had been telling poor me stories about how difficult their childhoods were). Next thing you know the walkie is squwaking with screams but the tack sharp Marines can't figure out what's happening and keep asking what's going on. Come on! You're on an island with rogue killer cyborgs, the rescuers are at the lab, and you can't figure out what is happening?

Another ridiculous scene occurs when the team fearfully make their way along the path. They are tense after the first attack of the cyborgs - who run fast in the background, go up trees, and appear to have costumes out of 1960s Star Trek episodes. Suddenly their captain is caught in a snare that leaves him hanging upside down from a tree. The appropriate reaction based on everything that has occurred is to go into defensive mode, and watch for the enemy while someone cuts him down. As Marines, they should be a cohesive unit and protect each other. But their reaction is laughter. Ahaha, you're hanging from a tree. Isn't it funny? No, it's not. You're in danger and cyborgs are loose. Get a grip man!

The sound is horrible and often seems like perhaps they were using cheap mics that overloaded. There's distortion and clipping on lots of characters, but it's not consistent. The Marines yell alot so maybe it is as simple as the mics overloading.

We couldn't get through this one. It was so bad and going nowhere. They give no background of what is going on, nor any exposition. You just pick up the plot from random things the characters say, such as all of a sudden one asks how they're going to get off the island. So they're on an island? How would I know that?

But the biggest question of all is, when will scientists learn that they should develop an almost unstoppable killing machine, rather than one who might get loose and kill its developers?

Donkey Punch (2008)

2011-07-05T21:03:00.001-05:00

Three girls on vacation agree to accompany three guys to a yacht for a party. The guys turn out to be the crew and when they get drunk, they decide to impress the girls further by taking the yacht out for a spin. The characters are stereotypes.

The guys tells stories of sexual prowess as they're looking for some action and the ladies man brings up a story about the donkey punch. (Look it up if you don't know what it refers to as it's ridiculous.) Later during a drunken sexual tryst, the awkward guy enthusiastically decides to try it, and the trip turns ugly.

The guys decide to cover up what happened, which is stupid as there is no way the girls will go along with it. What happened was an accident and a stupid one at that, but it's not as bad as what their plan to stay out of trouble.

Chain Letter (2010)

2011-07-04T20:42:00.001-05:00

A high school student receives a chain letter via email which states he needs to pass it on within twenty four hours or die. So he sends it to his friends. Some of them pass it on, while others promptly delete it. Too bad because it's from a serial killer who uses technology to track whether they have forwarded it, and if not, he kills them using chains (get it, chains?)

The students are all in the same history class and their history teacher is anti-technology. He believes it is all consuming and there is no privacy anymore. So he uses a device to block cell phone signals for up to fifty yards so the kids can't use their phones during his class. You'd think this would foreshadow something, but it doesn't come up again.

One of the kids figures out what is going on and contacts the detective on the case. The detective goes off to look for the killer in an abandoned factory without any back up or telling anyone exactly where he'll be.

The biggest problem with this movie is that various clues are thrown out as to who the killer is, but there is never any real explanation. The movie just sort of stops. There is talk of an anti-technology cult who may be using technology to kill, and a local man wounded in the war whose families factory closed due to the economy. Are they working together? If so, how did they team up, and why would the local man want to kill innocent teenagers? Is the history teacher part of the anti-technology cult? And who was the guy who showed up at the police station pretending to be the profiler? None of this is ever explained.

Also the motives for the killings is suspect. Usually horror movies kill kids because they are callous jerks, go places they shouldn't go, commit crimes, or have sex. But there is no real reason for these kids to die. We dont' really know anything about them, but they aren't shown doing anything wrong.

The movie is book ended by the same footage of a couple leaving their house and their kid being chained behind their cars. Putting it at the beginning just causes confusion for the viewer. There is no reason to show this at the beginning as it hasn't happened yet. It makes no sense within the context of what is going on.

Dead Noon (2007)

2011-07-03T17:38:00.001-05:00

A large cowboy kidnaps a girl and tells her the story of Frank, an evil gunslinger who dies, goes to hell, and beats Satan at cards which earns him a return to Earth. Once back, Frank goes to Boothill to revive his posse using his new powers of the undead. This leads to the question, shouldn't Frank revive his gang rather than the posse as they would be the ones who brought him to justice? Someone needs to learn the language of the Old West.

Cut to present day where Sheriff Logan Kane is going on his honeymoon and has given brother Stuart his badge. Stuart is bitter about always being second to Logan. Perhaps it is because he's sort of self absorbed, such as when he gets a desperate call from a deputy being chased by the undead posse and is completely cavalier about the need to help.

Even though Logan is on his honeymoon, he's decides the town needs him. His poor bride expresses her disapproval (and who can blame her?) as Logan turns the truck around. Then all of a sudden his brothers girlfriend (who is in love with Logan) is in the car. Huh? Where'd his wife go? Is this a dream? Is the girl wishing she were with him? Nope, it's just bad continuity. So at the 35 minute mark, we've probably seen 15 minutes of story and 20 minutes of people running around or shooting guns.

The movie is full of people making bad decisions. Okay, you're in the middle of the desert. Ahead in the road, there is a dead gunman. To the left and right, there are dead gunmen who have skulls for heads. They're approaching each side of your car. What do you do? The girl in this situation gets out of her car and runs away. Seriously? Oh movie, what is wrong with you?

And why do the hunters shoot the undead guy when he walks up to them? They don't realize he's already dead and freak out thinking that they killed someone. So then why did they shoot him? It makes no sense.

But I think the biggest question mark revolves around Frank's quest to kill Logan. All he cares about is exterminating Logan because he is the great great grandson of Frank's old west nemesis, Sheriff Kane. Um, so why doesn't he just kill Stuart? Since he's Logan's brother he would also fit the bill. Plus he's not so smart so he's a much easier target.

The film is filled with cgi blood and fire. There is a kid in a barn who keeps doing unnecessary flips while trying to escape the undead. And the driving scenes look like something out of the 1960s with a projection screen behind them to show landscape outside the truck. Also the beginning and ending with Kane Hodder as the large cowboy was apparently added later which explains why it makes no sense.

Day of the Nightmare (1965)

2011-07-03T15:25:00.002-05:00

A wife finds hidden sketches of a woman which were drawn by her artist husband. Shortly afterwards the policy show up to ask if she's seen a woman who looks just like her husbands sketches. They have reason to believe the woman was murdered. The wife pleads ignorance even though her husband is often away for days at a time due to his job. The wife is stupid.

Doris Mays, a creepy looking man in drag, shows up and tries to kill the wife. Why? No idea. What's going on? No idea. There is a chase through an amusement park which is kind of interesting, if you like to see footage of 1960s amusement parks and I do.

Later I discovered the movie was missing the entire beginning that set up the plot. Ah, so that's why it made no sense, starting with a lady in drag on a plane who intended to kill the artists wife. There's a whole bunch of the movie missing which showed the husband in an apartment with models, nudity, and him being a total freak. If only I'd seen that, it would have at least made the plot understandable.

2010: Moby Dick (2010)

2011-07-03T15:01:00.000-05:00

A modern day telling of Moby Dick with Ahab being a naval man with a metal leg. In 1969, the great white whale chomped onto a submarine and only Ahab made it out alive. Now in 2010, he wants his revenge and he's going to use the navy's sub to do it.

The major problem with this movie, besides it being made by The Asylum, is that even though Barry Bostwick is chewing the scenery, his soliloquies are super boring. Another big problem is that everyone keeps talking about how white the whale is, but it looks gray.

Other plot holes - Ahab states that the whale has lured them to shallow water, but wouldn't a submarine's first priority be keeping track of the depth of the water? Also after the sub drives the shark into a reef , Ahab ponders how to get the sub in since the water is only 12 feet deep. Wait a minute.... so how'd the shark get in there? He's three times the size of the sub!?!

On the plus side, Ahab's leg gets blown off and he makes a new one out of a wooden cross. Also he pilots a rubber dingy while screaming insanely and holding a rocket launcher on his shoulder. Cool but not enough to save the movie as seeing pictures of those two scenes would satisfy my interest.

Sam's Lake (2005)

2011-07-03T14:41:00.000-05:00

A group of friends take Sam to the lake to cheer her up because her father recently died. Oddly enough Sam seems fairly happy as opposed to Kate who is super mopey due to a recent break up.

The first night Sam, her friends, and an old acquaintance who lives at the lake sit around a campfire telling scary stories. Local legend has it that there was a teenager who escaped from an asylum, murdered his family, and was never caught. He is said to roam the woods to this day.

The abandoned house that they saw on the way to the cabin is the murder house. The group goes into the house and discovers an old journal which reveals the twist in the story and signals the start of the killings.

The movie is mostly talk and nothing much happens until the end. Also there is a generic warning from a local at the general store, but as in most horror movies, no one asks for explanation and ignores it.

Almighty Thor (2011)

2011-06-29T18:03:00.000-05:00

Loki decides to steal the Hammer of Invincibility and destroy the tree of life. Thor's father, Odin, and his brother are killed, leaving Thor to try to keep Loki from accomplishing his evil plans.

Lunkhead Thor is an inexperienced fighter, but he has lots of heart. Too bad he doesn't have lots of brains because he makes very bad decisions, and ignores all the advice and warnings from his colleagues who are much more knowledgeable.

A portal to different worlds takes Thor to modern day Los Angeles, but Thor doesn't blink an eye. How can he not react to a modern city? Well Thor's not the brightest bulb. He probably didn't even notice they weren't in the woods anymore.

The movie is mostly fights, cgi creatures, Thor running off to do something stupid, and a skull faced Richard Grieco screaming. Sometimes the dialogue is hard to hear due to the soundtrack, but I guess that's not such a big deal since it's it's just Loki following Thor around and asking for the hammer.

The Evil Woods (2007)

2011-06-29T17:51:00.001-05:00

Oh no. Nope, this will not do at all. The oldest teenagers in the world head out for a weekend of drinking, camping and fun, but instead run into a serial killer.

The description stated that the teens run into the Beer Hunter, which we thought was a typo. Could they mean bear or deer? Unfortunately it's not a mistake. It refers to what is essentially a game of russian roulette with a shaken beer.

After the first deaths and the introduction of the annoying thirty year old teens, we bailed. It was just too awful.

Eaten Alive (1977)

2011-06-29T17:37:00.000-05:00

A run down hotel located in the swamp is run by a creepy crazy guy and has a large gator in a fenced off area next to the porch. The hotel owner murders guests that he doesn't like and feeds their bodies to the gator.

I don't know why anyone would stay at this hotel. The guy is creepy, the hotel is sketchy, and there's a dead monkey in a cage on the front porch. What the heck, people?!

The Crow: Wicked Prayer (2005)

2011-06-29T17:15:00.000-05:00

Jimmy and Lily are murdered by escaped convict Luc Crash and his gang. They steal Lily's eyes and Jimmy's heart to be used in a Satanic ritual. When Jimmy comes back as the Crow, he sets out to avenge his death and the death of the woman he loves.

This movie is a whole lot of confusion. Jimmy is dead before we even know anything about him other than the townsfolk don't like him and he's in love with Lily. Things happen and we aren't given a story as to why they are happening. Later there are a few short flashbacks, but they never flesh out the story or explain everything. Also Edward Furlong doesn't look scary but more like a silly goth kid once he's wearing Crow makeup. Also his speeches all sound like blah blah blah.

Screamtime (1986)

2011-06-26T17:32:00.001-05:00

Mediocre anthology tied together by the story of two hoods who steal some video tapes and go to a friend's house to watch them on her vcr. The first story involves a couple who return from their honeymoon and the bride, who wears huge Jackie O shades, starts to see murders, blood, and people in the house. The husband soon tires of her hysterics and hires a psychic who declares there is no bad energy in the house. There is a twist ending that I didn't see coming, but it leaves too many questions of how it could actually happen.

Next a motocross racer takes a job as a gardener/handyman for two rich old ladies as he needs money to repair his bike. The ladies tell him not to cross the fairies who live in the gardens as they'll seek vengeance. The racer and his friends decide to rob the ladies and needless to say, it goes poorly.

Lastly there is the sad story of a puppeteer whose wife is leaving him and taking their grown son with her. It's hard to understand why he wants her to stay as she's always yelling at him. Plus their son Damien is a hooligan who sets his father's puppet booth on fire during an intermission. Soon after Damien is beaten with a large stick. Is it the puppets come to life or the puppeteer? Eeek!

Scarecrow Gone Wild (2004)

2011-06-26T17:21:00.000-05:00

A baseball team decides to haze its new members by taking them to a cornmaze where legend has it a kid was accidentally killed years ago during hazing. One of the recruits, a scrawny diabetic kid who is usually protected by the assistant coach, angers the team and is left tied to the post next to a scarecrow.

When the other recruits are ordered back into the maze to untie him, they find him unresponsive and call the assistant coach who doesn't answer as he's busy knocking boots.

When our hero finally gets the twenty messages, he rescues the kid from the corn maze, calls in a favor with a local doctor, and leaves him for treatment in what appears to be an old hospital. He's the only patient and the only other people there are the doctor and nurse.

The baseball team goes to the beach with their girls and soon they hear whistling which turns out to be the scarecrow from the corn maze. Huh? Turns out a kid really did die years ago during hazing and was buried him under the scarecrow. So now the scarecrow aka dead kid is back to avenge his death.... on a bunch of stupid kids who had nothing to do with the original killing, but heck they're unlikable, so why not?

The other kids go to the beach, the scarecrow shows up, and everytime he whistles, someone dies. Stupid kids....

Contamination .7 (1993)

2011-06-26T17:14:00.000-05:00

aka Troll 3; The Crawlers; Creepers

A nuclear power plant dumps toxic waste in the forest, which causes tree roots to run amok and develop a taste for human flesh.

The Sheriff doesn't believe the stories of the scientist who works at the plant, or the local youths who find a dead body. He just mocks them and brushes them off. Turns out he's evil and in cahoots with the power plant.

People keep doing stupid things, like landing helicopters in the toxic sludge pit, or trying to dig up barrels of toxic waste without any thought of protecting their own safety - even though they already know the trees are deadly.

The film contains such stereotypical characters as evil Sheriff, authority figures who are in cahoots with the bad guys, and a hooker with a heart of gold who sacrifices her own life to save a small child.

This is supposedly Troll 3, but there are no trolls in it, nor anything relating to trolls, nilbog, or the previous movies.

Derailed (2005)

2011-06-26T17:08:00.001-05:00

Jean Claude Van Damme is an undercover agent called in for an assignment while on a family vacation. His family doesn't know what he does for a living, so he says he has a business emergency and goes off on what is supposed to be a quick trip. His mission is to pay a female thief some money and then get out of the country before anyone knows what has happened. In the midst of the exchange, soldiers rush in and the two go on the run. Their descriptions are broadcast on the news making it difficult for them to board the train.

It turns out the woman has stolen some vials containing small pox, and Mason, a villain that she used to work for, has taken over the train in order to get his hands on this biological weapon. When the vials break, droplets are spread via the train's duct work and those who were never vaccinated become ill. Also Jean Claude fights a lot of guys on a train, ala Steven Seagals Under Siege 2.

Killer Buzz (2001)

2011-06-25T17:40:00.000-05:00

When a reporter in the jungle is shot, she is found by the Shadow People and treated for her wounds. After she is located by her friends, she is brought to the hospital with wounds almost healed.

When her doctor her finds some welts from bee stings, he surmises that there is healing power in the experimental hives hidden in the jungle. So he smuggles a case of killer bees onto a plane headed for the US.

Rutger Hauer is an evil guy working on the secret government bee project in which the genetically engineered bees are being bred as perfect soldiers - kill fast, then die and remain untraceable.

While on the plane, the bees escape, as they do, and havoc ensues. People get stung, pass out and die. Oh it ain't good.

The film then turns into a rant about the ecological effect of pollution and the quest for oil. Also the Shadow People are natives, but the one who leads them is called Savoir and hes a white man. Hmmmm....

Primal (2007)

2011-06-05T17:32:00.000-05:00

Hikers who are behind schedule head off the trail and off the map to meet their fate at the hands of a strange looking sasquatch wearing an ape suit. Six months later, another group of students shows up to survey the land as an oil company wants to lease the land from the Bureau of Land Management. They are directed to go into the protected land that possibly "no human has ever touched." Ooooo-kay, sure are a lot of people around this untouched land.

Meanwhile in another story, Julie and her fiance Rick hike six hours into the mountains to visit her brother Wade, an awkward ranger who likes his solitude. Rick wanders the mountains and burns down meth labs hidden in the woods. Not sure how a single ranger can control a gasoline fueled fire in the wilderness, but best not to consider these things.

While surveying the land, the students find huge footprints with three toes, and decide to find whatever huge creature has been tromping around. Brilliant! As can be imagined, this goes horribly wrong.

While the body count rises, the two stories converge (so much for land humans have never touched), and sasquatch is a-killing everthing in sight. When sasquatch is near, the camera shakes and lines like scratches on film appear on the picture. Also there are fast cuts so you can't tell what is happening and cgi blood flies around.

The sasquatch has wierdly long arms, silly rubber feet and a silly rubber monster suit. Also strange is Rick's hair which from the back looks like a toupe. I'm not sure whether it is, or it's just a really bad haircut.

Bloodthirst 2: Revenge of the Chupacabra (2005)

2011-06-03T13:02:00.000-05:00

Nope. I can't do it. Even though the title mentions chupacabras, this is just another shot on video piece of crap that we couldn't sit through.

Monster (2008)

2011-06-03T12:49:00.001-05:00

Two sisters head to Tokyo to make a documentary. While they are there, Tokyo is rocked by what is reported to be an earthquake, but the truth is something else entirely.

I could not make it through this. It was like watching someone's home movies - boring! The video is shot to simulate hand held camera work from the characters point of view, which if you are prone to motion sickness may make you feel nauseous. The characters are not engaging, their dialogue is so banal I wonder if there was even a script.

Plus on a side note, their documentary is going to suck because their camera work is terrible.

Dead Summer (2005)

2011-06-03T12:43:00.001-05:00

There really needs to be some sort of rating that lets you know whether a movie has been shot by professionals or just a guy who happens to own a camcorder. Nowadays everyone has access to a camera that shoots video, which means no matter how little talent you have, you can shoot a movie.

I watch all kinds of horrible no budget pictures, which usually aren't very good, and usually I get through them. But I didn't make it through more than ten minutes of this one. Not that it was necessarily the worst movie I've ever seen, but I just couldn't take it.

The video is soft, the sound is not very good, and the characters in the first scene are awkward and talk about cartoon characters on cereal boxes. Eject now.

Snakehead Terror (2004)

2011-06-03T12:27:00.000-05:00

When his daughters boyfriend is killed by something in the lake, the Sheriff wants to shut down the beaches. But that doesn't fly with town officials who don't want to damage their tourism and upcoming fishing tournament. A biologist is dispatched to take lake water samples and determines that there is something toxic in the water. Then she uses her amazing fish tooth analyzing software to determine that the tooth they found is from an unusually large snakehead.

The Sheriff's daughter and her friends go out in a boat to try to destroy whatever killed her boyfriend. Oh silly kids... death and destruction soon follow.

The town had a snakehead problem two years ago which ruined their economy, so they are not happy to hear there may be another problem with even larger killer snakeheads. Turns out a couple of the locals have been dumping barrels of human growth hormone into the lake to try to revive the fishing as the towns economy is based around it. Only the snakeheads have repopulated and they're a-walkin' on land and eating anything they can get near.

Evil (2005)

2011-06-02T21:56:00.000-05:00

aka To Kako

Three men working construction discover a massive hidden cave and are attacked by something inside it. Each man goes ahead with his plans for the night - one at a club, one at home, and one at the soccer stadium . But none can remember how they got out of the cave or what happened inside. Shortly after conveying this to whoever they are with, each transforms into a zombie and begins biting those around them. Those who are bitten immediately attack others and the town is soon overrun by zombies.

A few survivors meet as they are trying to find safety. They decide to head out of the city in the hope that there are more survivors and less zombies in the countryside. But as happens in most zombie films, things do not go as planned and some inexplicable things happen.

There are some really nice special effects, such as heads splitting in half and an arm being ripped apart. The film was made in Greece.

Plaga Zombie: Mutant Zone (2001)

2011-06-02T21:31:00.000-05:00

When the FBI unleashes an alien virus on test subjects in a small town, the virus quickly spreads turning amost everyone into zombies. The town is quarantined and three friends who've survived are dropped off in the center of town. The FBI theorizes that once the zombies kill them, no one will ever know what happened there.

Med student Bill, computer geek Max, and pro wrestler John West (complete with theme song on a vinyl 45) try to find a way out of the city and avoid being killed by zombies. They wind up with a disk that contains a map which shows the only exit, but decoding the disk takes 12 hours. So they must try to survive the night stuck in a town full of zombies.

The film was made in Argentina on a tiny budget. The comedy sometimes falls flat and there is an overly long sequence involving John West and his memorabilia room. Over all though, it was entertaining and much better than I would expect for this type of budget.