The Butchering (2015)

 

Tommy Miller killed his parents, then went to his high school and killed his classmates at the dance.  He was never caught.  

Twenty years later, one of the two survivors from the school is murdered.  Her younger sister, who is currently in high school, is also killed.  Coincidentally the detective sent to investigate is the other survivor of the massacre.

High school student Julie, whose uncle is the detective, is nervous about a killer being on the loose.  Her friends speculate that it could be Tommy Miller come back to kill again.

The police are having none of their teenage shenanigans, especially  on Halloween. When one girl calls 911 because she hears someone trying to get into her house, the police ask if it’s a joke. Then they tell her they’ve been getting a lot of prank calls and say, “don’t make last night make you nervous... you know the number to call if you’re worried.”  Yes she does and that’s why she called. Next victim status confirmed.

The most disconcerting part of the film is that the high schools students appear to be as old as the detectives. One is even balding.  If you lined up the entire cast, and made someone guess as to who were the adults and who were the high school students, they wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. 

This is an Irish slasher film. There’s nothing new here as it follows standard storylines.  To be honest, the reason I watched it was the review I saw below on Amazon prime.  I was curious as to what the cast looked like since someone was so repulsed by them. My imagination was far worse than anyone I saw on screen. They mostly looked like anyone you’d see on the street. I’ve seen far uglier actors in the ultra low budget regional horror films done by amateurs  who think having a camera makes you a filmmaker.

Ditch Party (2016)

 

A small group of teens get a message on their phone to come to a ditch party in the basement of the school. There they find snacks, weed and alcohol, but no one knows who sent the texts.  

When shots are heard outside, they lock themselves in the room and call the police. The cops tell them there’s an active shooter in the building and they should shelter in place. They also mention all the doors are booby trapped so it will take the police awhile to rescue them.

Some of the kids get into arguments, while others are more like, oh cool snacks.  When someone knocks on the door, they let them in.  At one point ,the girl in charge decides she’s going to leave because the police tell them the shooter is in another wing of the building.  She makes a run for it and passes a group of teens running in the opposite direction which should clue her in to change direction.  Also why is she trying to leave when the police previously told her all exits had booby traps?  Gah!

There are some ridiculous plot points in this film, such as when the police let a teenage pizza delivery person into the building.  Oh great, a hostage for our shooter.  Or when the shooter is banging on the door to the room the kids are in and the police say, let him in and then put him on the phone. Okay so maybe its just the police are idiots sinces both of these lapses in judgement are going to get teenagers killed.

Also the shooter ordered two large pizzas, but those boxes appeared to be different sizes. And if you’re hiding from a shooter and someone doesn’t want to call their dad, are you really going to ask this kid who you’re not friends with, “do you want to talk about it?”  Seriously?  

Most of the movie is just people making bad decisions.

Amityville Terror (2016)

 It’s an Amityville extravaganza!  Teen girl Haley and her family move in with her aunt in a huge house that they’re renting at a bargain price in Amityville.  Always be wary of the bargain rental. I once looked at a huge apartment that was super cheap and the guy revealed that while technically he was the owner, he was being sued by someone else who claimed ownership. He was renting it cheap because whoever took the apartment may need to move suddenly if the lawsuit didn’t go his way. Plus it had some obvious livability problems that he assured me would be fixed before I moved in.  Needless to say I passed on that bargain.

Haley rides a dirtbike and hates they move to the smallest town ever that has nothing but trees. She quickly finds a party in the woods where the mean girls treat her like crap and one of the guys is friendly. Unfortunately that guy is boyfriend of the meanest girl so that’s not going to go well.

Her aunt has been sober for a while but is starting to act weird. The family wonders if she’s on drugs again. Nope, its just the evil in the house that is causing her to act super creepy and murdery.  Then dad start to act strange and Haley begins to wonder if the stories the mean girls have told her about their house are true.

Compared to Amityville Toybox or Amityville Clownhouse, this is competent.  But it’s nothing new and doesn’t take place in the same Amityville as the original. So again, we’ve got a possession film that uses Amityville to sell itself.  If you have to use another movies recognition factor to get someone to watch your own movie, you’re doing something wrong.

Amityville Clownhouse (2017)

 

Oh no, not again. Another second hand store with the Amityville monkey for sale. When a couple buys the monkey, they  immediately start hearing noises and crashing sounds in their house. The husband says it must be rats but never goes to check out what made the sounds or if something has fallen over in another room. Yes, rats it is. Weirdo.

The husband becomes possessed, like they do in Amityville movies, while the wife insists the noises in the house isn’t rats. This doesn’t sit well with her husband since he’s the man with the monkey and she needs to buy this rat story.

This movie is dreadful. While the acting is subpar, it’s genius compared to the sound.  Often the background music drowns out the dialogue, which could be considered a blessing based on the dialogue we can hear.  But you will find yourself watching a scene waiting for someone to talk and then realize they’re already talking.

There is also a lot of padding in the film. We have six minutes of the wife walking to the park, finding a place to sit and drawing. What is the point? There isn’t any, other than to add time to the film.  Plus near the end we have ten minutes of footage from Amityville Toybox to provide backstory on why the monkey is evil.

The characters aren’t likable and there is a priest with an anger issue. He starts shouting during a news cast because no one is taking his possession story seriously and storms out of the studio.  The most professional part of their movie is the short breaking news segment which could actually pass for a newscast - other than when they cut to reporters in the field and then it’s back to the same amateur style as the rest of the video.

Also there are stories from the newspaper. I’m not sure if they are real headlines, but it looks like real news stories in which they’ve photoshopped in bite sized references to the monkey, such as “was toy monkey to blame”, or “evil monkey.”

Lastly if you are expecting a clown, you will be sorely disappointed.  The only reference to a clown is at the beginning and has nothing to do with the rest of the movie.  A man kills his entire family while dressed as a clown.  Some idiots break into his house to steal the clown painting on the wall because they can get big bucks for it on the dark web since it was at the scene of the murder.  Something supernatural kills them. Their character and the clown painting are never mentioned again. Clownhouse indeed!

Ridiculous dialogue:

It’s not the rats. Rats don’t slam doors.

Amityville Toybox (2016)

 Aka the Amityville Legacy

Oh good god no. An unpleasant family gathers for their fathers fiftieth birthday party. One of the daughters gives him a toy monkey, which is unfortunately from the Amityville house. After he cuts his foot on the doll.... you heard me... the evil in the monkey possesses him and makes him kill his family.  The end.  Well the end is about an hour after that but you don’t really need to watch because it’s not all that interesting.

This a rough one to get through. It’s got a 2.2 on IMDB. The acting is at a local theater level and the sound must have been recorded on location based on the ambient noise that’s underlying the dialogue. One of the characters keeps trying to give the Dad alcohol even though he’s been sober for twenty years. Also there’s a weird scene where one of the daughters walks into dads room and he’s standing there naked with his back to the door. Instead of walking out, or closing the door, she stands there and looks down. Seriously woman, get out of the room if your dad is naked. Also it appears to be night outside but when she goes downstairs it’s daytime.

The beginning of the movie is a flashback to 1974 in the DeFeo house with a DeFeo walking in the hallway with a shotgun.  The problem with this is if you know the Amityville story, it’s pointless. And if you don’t know the story, this doesn’t explain anything because it’s too vague. 

This is a movie that slapped the name Amityville in the title to get people to watch it. Well they succeeded.  I knew it would be bad, just didn’t realize how bad.  The only reason to watch is if you have a goal of seeing every movie that uses Amityville in the title. Other than that, make a hard pass on this one.

Ridiculous dialogue:

It’s radioactive... with evil. 

Ghost Ship (1980)

 

Slow moving movie about slow moving George Kennedy who is the captain of a cruise ship.  It’s Kennedys last trip as the captain and he’s none too happy about it.  When the cruise ship is hit by a mystery freighter, only a small handful of people end up in the life raft.

Lost at sea with no provisions, they are thankful when a rusty old ship suddenly appears.  Although no one comes to answer their calls of help, the stairs are down along the side of the ship and the survivors climb up to the deck. Well most of them climb up before the stairs break and throw three of them into the ocean.  A rope ladder is found and thrown down, and they manage to get doused with oil or mud on their climb up.  Yes, they’ve entered the death ship and it has evil in store for them.

This is going for a scary atmosphere rather than straight up horror. It would have scared me as a teenager but hasn’t aged well.  The horror is fairly low key, such as the water in the shower turning red, people getting tangled in ropes that send them to their death, or machinery that operates on its own. Kennedy is probably the creepiest thing about this movie in that he’s an angry, hulking man possessed by the ship and glares at everyone he comes in contact with.

Break (2019)

Aka Otryv

Five friends decide to go to the top of a mountain on New Year’s Eve. They walk up to the gondola carrying a lighted Christmas tree and a box full of beer, along with their snowboards.  

Kirill paid the lift operator to stay late so they can be on the mountain at midnight.  However they arrive later than expected and the operator threatens to leave if they don’t immediately get on the lift.  Kirill can’t find his bag and refuses to go, demanding that his girlfriend get out of the car.  The others think he’s being stupid and they stay on the gondola leaving Kirill behind.

Half way up the gondola stops due to an accident at the station.  The group assumes the issue will shortly be fixed and spend the night in the car.  In the morning, when there is still no sign of help or an operating gondola, they try to figure out a way to get help.  Of course this is when we start seeing what people are truly made of and there’s always one coward in every group, well at least in movies anyway.

I don’t know how I got this idea in my head, but when I watched the preview I thought it was a horror movie and someone was shooting at them while they were trapped in a gondola. So I was expecting a whole different film.  This is a Russian film and it’s dubbed.  I prefer to watch foreign films in their original language because the inflections in the dubbing are usually horrendous.  But this one didn’t seem that bad.

This is similar to the movie Frozen, where three college students pay a chair lift operator to let them go on a late night run after the mountain has closed and get stuck on the chair lift in a blizzard.  The lesson in both being don’t go to places after they close because if something goes wrong, no one will ever come looking for you.

The Eve (2015)

 

Three friends from college, Jen, Scott, and Harry head to Martha’s Vineyard for New Year’s Eve.  Along for the trip is Harry’s new girlfriend Lacey.  Jen is a bit put off by Lacey being there since the trip was partly to work through some issues in the friendships. Most pressing is that Harry invested in a venture with Scott and appears to have lost his money. This is money he couldn’t afford to lose and Scott is cavalier about it. 

The group gets into a fight after Harry sees Scott and Lacey kiss.  Harry and Jen are mad at Scott.  Oddly enough Scott never mentions that it was Lacey who kissed him. Everyone heads in different directions to cool down and later one of them is found dead on the beach.

This leads to the lamest attempt to resuscitate a human ever committed to film.  They spend maybe ten seconds attempting revival and then declare the person deceased.  In the panic there is talk of calling the police and getting help.  But instead of someone continuing CPR and others going for the phone or the caretaker, they leave the body on the sand with the waves washing up on it.  Holy cow people, you can’t save someone if you leave their body to the mercy of the elements

Also they believe this is a murder and lock themselves in the house. But why would they say that? There is no blood on the body and no one mentioned any juries. They barely even looked at this person. 

What follows is numerous stupid decisions, culminating in a scene where someone seems intent on making as much noise as humanly possible while trying to slip away from the killer. Seriously, if you think someone is trying to kill you and you’ve locked them out of the room, don’t go clomping around on the deck because they’ll figure out you’re outside.

None of the characters are particularly likable, and Harry is such a weenie. He’s alternatively helpless and overly aggressive.  You don’t care about the characters so when they die, you just sort of meh about it.

Unholy Night (2019)

 

A nurse volunteers to work on Christmas and listens to an old man’s stories as she wheels him around the hospital.  He’s got a scrapbook with photos and articles, which is kind of weird since I don’t think he knows these people. Actually it might be worse if he knows them since who would want a scrapbook of deaths of people they knew.  This part of the film ties together the stories in the anthology.

The first story is about a woman who takes her boyfriend home to meet her family at Christmas. She wants to do mushrooms before they go.  He’s not interested since last time it caused him to hallucinate and he wants to make a good impression.  However she ignores his wishes, eats one and then manipulates him into doing them as well.

Things seem okay at first, but then weird things happen and he thinks he must be tripping. Right after realizing he’s not, they send him into the basement to get a pie out of the freezer and the family secret is revealed.

A number of problems with this. First, if you’re already eating, why is the pie still in the freezer? Second, who sends the guy you just met to get something from the basement?  Lastly, they thought he knew their secret, but how would he? His girlfriend never mentioned it and even she is surprised he doesn’t know.  Ridiculous.

The second story is about drunk dead Debbie. Debbie was a shy woman who didn’t have many friends. One night at an office party, she has too much to drink and a group of nasty co-workers goad her drunk ass into hammering drinks to the point of impairment.  They laugh as Debbie staggers off to the bathroom, where she then dies choking on her own vomit.

Legend has it that if three women take a shot and say her name they can summon her.  What? This makes no sense. So Debbie is such a pathetic spirit that she’ll travel anywhere in the world? She doesn’t just haunt the building she died in, or the mean girls who messed with her? I guess so because there she is in someones apartment and bam pow, that’s all they wrote.

The last story involves our nurse, who is treated poorly by her supervisor at the hospital.  After her shift, she heads to her mothers for dinner.  Her Mom also treats her poorly and it’s not clear why she would go see her Mom on Christmas if this is how he’s treated.  It becomes more confusing when Mom locks her in the closet, which apparently she does every year.  Oddly enough there is a manikin in the closest dressed for Christmas who talks to her.  Good god, this can’t bode well.

While this wasn’t very good, it looked like a masterpiece after watching Elves.  It’s got better production value than something shot on a camcorder, but it’s not anything new or all that interesting.

Ridiculous Dialogue:

Nurse - Did that really happen?
Old Man- Definitely
Nurse - Teenagers.  (Said after one of the stories that a made no mention of teenagers in any way).

Christmas Blood (2018)

 

Aka Juleblod

A serial killer, who does his murders on Christmas Eve, escapes from prison a few days before Christmas.  Detectives believe he intends to finish killing people on his list.  As the list was over 300 names and he killed over 100 people, he’s got a lot of choices and they’re hoping to figure it out before he strikes again.

Our main characters are a group of friends who get together due to the suicide of ones mother.  There’s a lot of partying that pads the film and of course our Santa Claus serial killer is right outside their window. Whatever will they do? Yeah, they’re going to die.

This is a Norwegian slasher and much better than the crappy low budget Christmas horror movies I’ve seen this week. That being said, it’s fairly average.  It’s also darkly lit to the point that sometimes it is hard to see what is happening.  

Elves (2018)

 

A group of unlikeable friends meet in a creepy location and play a game called naughty list.  The rules of the game are write your deepest, darkest secrets on a piece of paper and also write your name on a list.  The woman who provided the game tells them to be honest because the elf is watching and he’ll know if they lie.  

Out of nowhere, an elf shows up on someone’s lap.  Now if it was one of those elves on the dvd cover, that would be really creepy.  But instead its like something your middle aged aunt would have bought at a discount store. So it’s just sort of lame looking, rather than scary. Also it’s so odd looking, I’m not sure if I would have known it was

The next day they find out one of the friends from the party died, and realize that the elf is real and coming for them.  You’d think the first thing they’d do is track down the person who made them play the game and ask what the hell is going on. But no, it takes them awhile to figure that out. When they visit her, she says she had no choice, but doesn’t offer any good explanation as to why she provides the elves with a list of names every year.

This is a really low budget film with minimal effects and amateur actors. We aren’t provided with any information about any of the characters. We don’t know what sort of secrets they wrote down, or if any of them has actually done anything horrible to make the elves want to kill them.  And the elves aren’t animated. They appear in a seated position and maintain their non-moving terror throughout the film. So if you want to see a creature that could questionably be called an elf sit motionless, then this is the movie for you.

The opening scene appears to have nothing to do with the rest of the film.  Two brothers are alone in the house when an elf shows up off screen.  The older brother tells the younger one that his present is in the oven.  The kids climbs in and the older boy sets a cooking time.  Are there actually ovens that lock when you set the time to cook? I’m not sure why this kid can’t get out.  Maybe it’s because he doesn’t have a functioning brain stem. He can see into the oven and it is obviously completely empty.  Geez kid, how did he trick you?  This is a rough one to get through.

This is what the elves actually look like. 

Shelved (2016)

 

A man stops at an antique store and finds a toy elf.  He wants to buy it but the shop owner says it’s not for sale.  The man puts a $100 bill on the counter and takes the elf. What a tool.

Over dinner he regales his wife with the story of how he got it.  His wife laughs and says, “you’re such a card.  Nobody tells my husband no.”  What an unpleasant couple.

Their daughter is sent to a psychiatrist because they don’t like her behavior,  which is pretty mild, typical kid stuff. Although to be fair, they do make her brush her teeth before breakfast, and her snacks are gluten free crackers with soy cheese. So if she was to revolt, I wouldn’t blame her.

The real trouble in the house is actually the elf, Sgt. Gumdrop.  The backstory is that Gumdrop was one of Santa’s best.  The other elves were jealous and pushed him over the edge so now he kills people.  Well that escalated quickly.  Now the family has to figure out how to get this menace out of their home.

This is a really low budget video.  A lot of the acting is stilted and in community theater territory.  The effects are very basic.  There’s a weird scene where a neighbor lets herself in, opens a gift, and raids the fridge. It has no purpose other than padding to set up a kill.  I wouldn’t have watched this other than I was trying to watch lots of Christmas horror movies.

Good Tidings (2017)

 

A group of homeless people have found refuge in a municipal court  building that is currently for sale.  It hasn’t been empty long since the interior still looks good.  The group is having a Christmas party when three psychos dressed as Santa break in, lock the front doors,  set up boobytraps and start killing people at the party.

Sam, who was formerly in the military, is the only hope to try to save those who’ve panicked and run like lambs to the slaughter.  He manages to get to the cells, along with two others, and lock themselves in so they’re safe.  

Sam heads out to find other survivors and asks the couple not to leave safety of the cells. But in typical horror movie fashion, they don’t stay put, are too damn noisy and end up getting caught.  Good god.

This is one of those horror movies that just makes you feel depressed.  They establish the kindness of the homeless people and then throw evil in their midst. The Santa’s are creepy in a yucky way rather than a fun way. 

Mrs. Claus (2018)

After being hazed and bullied at a sorority, Angela murders her tormentor and then kills herself.  Ten years later the bullies younger sister Danielle joins the sorority and stays in the same house where her sister was murdered.  

Danielle is unable to admit that her sister was a bully and justifies her behavior by saying it was only a prank and she wasn’t the only person who hazed people. Angela’s mother isn’t buying it and shows up at the sorority house.

Other than one girl who disappears when she heads home for the holiday, people start to disappear at the sorority Christmas party.  This is pretty amazing since there are only around eight people attending, and it’s not readily apparent that something is wrong.

This is a fairly bland slasher without any real scares. The Mrs Claus mask the killer wears is partly creepy and partly silly due to its mouth being open in a big O shape.  If you imagine it going, “duh” when you see it’s slack jaw, it’s pretty hard to be scared.

There is a line in the film about how serial killers only kill attractive people.  This is a very risky line when you have actors of varying levels of attractiveness in a scene. I wasn’t sure if it was foreshadowing but it was only the writer trying to be clever.

Holiday Hell (2019)

 

An anthology which utilizes a wrap around involving a curio shop where a woman arrives at closing time on Christmas eve to find a gift for her sister.  The proprietor shows her items and tells her the gruesome stories behind them.

Doll face- college students go to a deserted house to party. There is nothing creepy about this house.  It’s a modern split level in a residential neighborhood and looks like it’s still occupied. So it’s no surprise when there is someone in the house and people start dying. 

Rabbi doll - Happy Hanukkah! Here’s a creepy, vintage, handmade rabbi doll.  Surprisingly the kid loves it. His parents leave him with a babysitter for the weekend, who turns out to be planning to rob them with the help of her boyfriend.  The weirdest bit is that the kid is supposed to live in a mansion but his bedroom is tiny.

Bloody Santa suit - a guy celebrating a year of sobriety finds himself passed over for a promotion at work for a man with less seniority.  To add insult to injury, his wife doesn’t want to be anywhere near him and everyone keeps telling him there’d better not be another drunken incident like at last years office party. 

The ring - this tale is told by the customer about the distinctive ring she’s wearing.  A young woman moves to an isolated farm where she rents a room and says she’s alone in the world.  Damn it girl! Don’t ever tell a stranger that you have no family or friends.  You may as well say you’re the perfect murder victim because no one will miss you. Things go as well as expected.

While not a great movie, it’s better than many of the Christmas horror flicks out there.  In fact it may have seemed better than it actually was since I watched several horribly bad Christmas horror movies right before it.  Joel Murray and Jeffrey Combs are always enjoyable to watch so it’s got that going for it.

Frenzy (2018)

aka Surrounded

What do you do when you're an influencer who's a travel blogger and you've got a crazy group of friends?  Well naturally you do something stupid like travel to a cove that people are prohibited from visiting. Nothing could possibly go wrong.

Paige and her friends post about their crazy adventures around the world. Paige is a risk taker, baby! Her sister Lindsey is more conservative, but is convinced to join the crew on a trip to the cove. Paige and the group are convinced this will bring them tons of hits, thus increasing the money they make from their vlog.

They hire a pilot to fly them to the isolated area. But a few miles away from their destination, the wing comes apart, the door falls off, and several people are sucked out of the plane.

Lindsey surfaces from the crash and finds a couple of the others.  No one tries to grab hold of anything floating the water to conserve energy. One guy decides to swim to an island about a mile away because it should have supplies. He doesn't take anything with him to keep him afloat. Things go from bad to worse when they discover there are sharks in the water.

The movie goes from present day to flashbacks explaining the relationships between the sisters and giving info on the group dynamics.  But you don't care about the characters so if a shark eats them it doesn't matter.  Watch for the scene where the girl with a broken leg uses a lasso to pull a huge boulder off the island onto a shark. There are so many things wrong with that.

Death Nurse (1987)

Edith Mortley is a nurse at a clinic that the city refers indigents for treatment.  Edith's brother provides surgical care, even though he is not actually a surgeon. He just likes to experiment with things, such as heart surgery.

Edith and her brother have a good thing going. They have a steady stream of clients who are quickly killed leaving minimal cost for the clinic. Then they bill medicare or the city for months of treatment. If anyone comes looking for the patient, they claim the person was released after their health improved.

This was shot on video and is only 57 minutes long.  What's even crazier than the short running time is that the film has so much padding. We're treated to scenes of someone digging a hole, as well as real time footage of getting a bowl of ice cream.  There are even scenes from one of the directors others movies, Criminally Insane, which was shot in 1975 and stars the same lead actress.

I was interested in this one because it was shot on video.  Having VHS cameras opened up movie making for amateur filmmakers.  Shot on video movies can have a certain charm due to the filmmakers sincerity, unintentional humor, or can be amusing to watch due to the questionable plot and bad acting. However the majority of these movies are just plain hard to watch, which is where this one falls.

The set for the clinic is the directors home, which makes it hard to believe this is a clinic of any kind.  There is no ADR in this film. The background sound changes from shot to shot during peoples  conversations.  The only music in the film is a single tension inducing chord when footage of two rats is shown. The footage appears to be taken from another horror movie and the chord abruptly cuts off when the scene changes.

The funniest thing about the film is that a character will say something menacing or meant to cause tension and the camera will zoom in on the persons face.  Typically you would hear a music to produce the intended effect, but there is silence as you stare at a face filling the entire screen.

As The Gods Will (2014)

Shun Takahata is a high school student who plays video games and bemoans his boring life.One day at school during a lesson, his teachers head explodes, and a daruma doll forces the class to participate in a life or death game.

Shun manages to survive the game and when one of his friends show up, they try to escape. But the school is locked down and they can't get out. They find other survivors in the gym and the next game begins.

There are times where they run into other survivors and band up to work together to attempt to beat the new game that is thrust upon them. Oh Japan, where do you come up with these things?

This movie is crazy. From little red marble like orbs falling out of the students who die when their heads explode, to the giant cat statue with huge claws, and a deadly game of kick the can.

All the Creatures Were Stirring (2018)

A couple on a first date on Christmas Eve end up at a community theater because it is the only place open.  The workers are rude, the play is odd, and there's a creepy old guy who keeps looking at them.  Surprisingly, they don't leave during intermission.

This is an anthology, which I'm always wary of since they often aren't very good. However on the plus side, each story doesn't  last long so there is always hope that the next story will be better.  The most interesting thing about this anthology is that Contance Wu - who starred in Crazy Rich Asians the same year -  appears in one of the segments.

Along with the wrap around about the couple at the community theater, there are five stories:

The Stockings Were Hung 
A boring office Christmas party turns deadly when everyone gets locked the break room and they are forced to open gifts, some of which were not brought by the party goers.

Dash Away All
After doing some late Christmas Eve shopping, a man locks his keys and phone in the car and decides to ask for help from the last vehicle in the parking lot, which is a creepy van.

All Through The House
A modern re-telling of A Christmas Carol with a neighbor who has lots of Christmas decorations.

Arose Such a Clatter
A man hits one of Santa's reindeers with his car and later pays the price.

In a Twinkling
A man turns down an invitation to a get together, so his friend brings the party to him, which is unfortunate because something strange occurs on this night every year.

The DVD cover makes you think there is going to be a story about a little creature breaking out of an ornament.  Sadly there is nothing even remotely like this in the movie.  I would have much rather seen the story of this creature than any of the stories in the movie.  You would only want to watch this if you were trying to watch every horror film about Christmas.  Otherwise there are better holiday horror movies out there.

Deadly Games (1989)

aka Dial Code Santa Claus
aka 3615 Pere Noel

Thomas lives in a mansion and spends his days pretending he's  Rambo. The house has trap doors in the floor, secret passageways and secret rooms. There is also a command post in the attic.

After Thomas gets in an argument with a friend about whether Santa Claus is real or not, he sets up cameras throughout the mansion to catch footage of Santa who has told him he'll visit.

On Christmas Eve, Thomas is home with his partially blind grandfather while his mother works later.   The family owns a department store and while parents do last minute shopping, the store provides entertainment for the kids.

Unfortunately this years Santa is a strange, creepy homeless guy who looks like an evil Zack Galifianakis.  This is a man who connected with Thomas through a computer and pretended to be Santa.  When Thomas wouldn't give him his address - since Santa should already know it - the psycho applied for the Santa job because Thomas mentioned his mom owned the store.

They must have been desperate for a Santa because this guy is really odd and not someone you'd want to bring around children. But this was the 80s, so I guess they weren't that careful about whose lap the kids sat on.

When Santa bitch slaps a little girl who is on his lap, Thomas's mother fires him.  She stays late to do the books, and creepy Santa ends up at her house which is a real problem since he wants to kill Thomas and anyone who gets in his way. It's essentially Home Alone if the robbers were killers instead.

Listen for the Eye of the Tiger rip off which is so similar I'm surprised there wasn't a lawsuit over it.

Demon Resurrection (2008)

Grace's friends are worried about her and show up unannounced at her home to confront her about what is going on.  They are invited in by her boyfriend, but Grace is out of it. They're wondering if her boyfriend is the cause of her ill health.

It turns out Grace was in a cult and her boyfriend managed to get her out.  But not before she'd become the carrier of a demon baby. I hate when that happens.

The cult leader is upset that his demon carrier has absconded with satanic baby inside her, and raises the dead to get her back... or get the baby. Not really sure as the movie was slow moving and I lost track of what was happening.

The best thing about this movie is the undead. They remind me of the dead in the templar knight movies about the Blind Dead.  Other than that, the movie is fairly slow moving. We actually ended up fast forwarding through the last twenty minutes because we couldn't bear to watch any more of it.

The thing that drove me nuts about this movie is that they are locked in a house, yet they keep opening the windows!  There is an army of corpses outside and people keep opening the damn windows, which results in death or dismemberment. If they'd just kept them closed, this never would have happened.

The Silence (2019)

A family with a deaf teenage girl try to stay alive while the world is taken over by creatures who will kill you if you make any noise... so basically it's a different version of the movie, A Quiet Place

13 year old Ally lives a normal teenager life, except that a few years ago she was in a bad car crash and became deaf.  On the nightly news, her family sees that scientists discovered a new species in a cave. Unfortunately that species is now on the loose killing everyone and everything in it's path, and it's headed right towards their town.  The news advises everyone to stay inside to remain safe.

The family decides the best thing would be to get out of the city since the creatures, which are being called vesps, are going to populated areas.  But they don't consider that other people might want to get out of the city as well -  until they end up in a traffic jam. So they decide to off road it which proves to be a second  bad decision when their friend rolls his SUV down a hill and gets trapped inside.  Then the vesps show up and they have even bigger problems.

While hiding in their SUV trying to figure out how to get away, they discover that the vesps are blind and drawn to sound.  So they leave their car and tiptoe off, ending up at a house in the country surrounded by a security fence. A series of bad decisions leads to the home owners death and the family sitting safely inside the house.

When one of the family gets an injury that needs antibiotics, Ally and her father head into town and stumble upon a creepy preacher with no tongue.  Turns out he's got some kind of cult and he'd like them to join. They take a hard pass, but you just know this creeper is going to show up again and be all sorts of trouble.

So we've got killer creatures, a creepy preacher with a cult, and a family that doesn't make good decisions.  This is not going to go well.

This is a lot like A Quiet Place, except that movie was effectively done while this one isn't that interesting.  This has lots of scenes where you watch people sign, whereas in A Quiet Place they are able to convey what is going on with a look or convey an emotion without words. It's much more effective.

There's no real feeling for how much time has passed in this movie. Is it one day? One week? One month?  And if it's any of those, how has a preacher had time to start a doomsday cult?  And why  would anyone join a newly formed cult that it was a good idea to cut out their own tongues and look for teenage girls to repopulate the Earth? It seems like you'd have to build up to that after at least a year of hardship and desperation.

This is like a combination of A Quiet Place and Birdbox. At one point, we see a child in an SUV with a piece of duct tape over his mouth so he won't make a sound. As my friend said, "Bird box your dumb mouth."

When they were talking about how they had to be quiet, Ally says she can help them because, "I know how to live in silence."  No, no you don't.  You live in silence, but that is not the same as knowing how to be silent. You can't hear. You have no idea if you're noisy. You can drop a frying pan and you'll still be living in silence, where everyone else will be saying, what the hell was that loud clanging sound?  She also can't gauge the level of her own voice.

And why does no one seem to know how to shut off a cell phone?  People, please. Get a grip.

If you're going to watch one movie about being silent, definitely choose A Quiet Place.

Soul to Keep (2018)

A group of college aged kids head out to an old farmhouse which was left to Erin and Josh after their grandfather died.  The kids plan to hang out and have a fun weekend.  However the mention that their grandfather drowned in the pond nearby and no one ever found his body makes their stay a little creepy.

The first night there, the lights go out. When Josh goes into the basement and turns on the circuit breaker, he finds a large passageway in one corner of the room.  It leads to another room with a triangle on the floor which appears to be made out of fresh blood. There is some sort of sacrifice in the center of it.

When he calls everyone down to the basement to check it out, they find a book of spells written in Latin. So what would anyone do other than try to conjure a demon?  It's odd that no one seems the least bit disturbed about this find, especially the blood. Who did it? And how did they get into the basement? No one asks.

One of the guys is pressured into being a conduit for the entity they are conjuring. Yeah that sounds like a great idea.  But something goes a little screwy during the incantation and the circle in broken. The conduit says he doesn't want to do this anymore so they go upstairs. But one of the girls stays behind to jump into the circle and read a little more of the spell. hey, great idea.

Josh's girlfriend is deaf so everyone has taken it on themselves to learn sign language, which is pretty considerate.  You know that's going to come into play at some point but it takes awhile for it to pan out.

This is a film to pass the time, nothing new here.

Double Down (2005)

Aaron Brand is a super secret spy/mercenary who gets paid the big bucks when he is for hired to do... whatever.  He's a computer genius and can hack into any system because he built most of the systems in use.  The countries of the world are afraid of him and want him dead. But no one will ever touch him because he's set up biological weapons in major cities throughout the world and has to enter a code at preset intervals or they go off. So basically Aaron Brand is an ahole with no critical thinking ability which seems like a drawback for his job.

He's like James Bond, if James Bond lived in his car and ate tuna out of the can while driving and spilled it all over himself.  Good god man, you live in your car in the desert. It's going to smell terrible in there even without the tuna.

He's been hired to shut down the Las Vegas strip for two months, which he never gets around to doing. He also has other random jobs based on his interactions with other unidentified characters. But he never seems to accomplish much since he's always thinking about his dead girlfriend and hiding out in the desert in his Mercedes.  He has dinner with a family and talks about the secret life of a mercenary to an eight year old girl.  Should you really be talking about this stuff with anyone, let alone a child, who - in a scene right out of the the Tommy Wiseau playbook - ends up having cancer.  And Brand believes he can cure this childs cancer by touching her head while holding a gem that an old man in the desert gives him.

There are a number of strange scenes. On of the strangest scenes is where he walks up to someone on the Vegas strip and pretends to bump into them while he smears a massive amount of anthrax down their arm. (Think applying sunscreen to your forearm).  The other is where he poisons a strawberry and serves it to newlyweds he's picked up at a wedding chapel, only to discover  he's picked up the wrong couple.  Yes, as we live and breathe, this man is a professional.

He has constant flashbacks of his girlfriend, who he says he's loved since he was seven. This makes things weird since the actress playing his girlfriend appears much younger than him.  Things get more uncomfortable when a sniper shoots his girlfriend as Brand and she are naked in a pool.  Unlike most humans, after cradling his dying love in his arms, Aaron leaves her face down doing the dead mans float. Then he joins her.  It's super confusing. Why did he think this was appropriate?  WHY???????

For all Brand's braggadocio about how he's won every military medal you can win, he comes off as a crazy homeless guy who lives in his car and thinks the government is watching him. He looks insane  sitting in the back of his Mercedes in the desert, with his five lap tops and three cell phones splayed out around him and several tiny satellite dishes sticking out of his trunk.  Oh yeah, this guy is the best of the best.

This is super crazy and nonsensical, and I recommend watching it. Although it's not good by any means, it is entertaining in it's earnestness and ridiculous concepts. I'm going to have to watch some of this guys other films because they look just as insane.


Ridiculous dialogue:

I don't need much to live on anymore. I just eat tuna and live out of the car.

Are you still on that quest? What you are you looking for anyway?... Tell me about that quest.

I'm calling all three of you on a conference call. (Said while holding three cells phones in front of his face, which is definitely not a conference call.)

Why is he wearing surgical gloves when he types?

Eating tuna out of the can while driving? Why he has to be the
best spy ever!

The genius at work

Get ready for lots of scenes with awkward climbing

WHY???????????!!!!!!!!!!!

Fakest mustache / beard combo ever

Our hero somehow manages to have a physique that is both thin and flabby,
and has a denim vest with the sleeves ripped off to display all his medals

This is not a conference call. It's a crazy man with three cell phones.

Unsane (2017)

Sawyer moves 450 miles away from her family and starts a new job. But she's feeling on edge because she's afraid that her stalker has followed her.

She goes to see a therapist to talk about her fears and the difficulty in having to vary every facet of her life so that no one can track her movements.  While discussing the strain on her emotional and mental health, Sawyer admits to the therapist that there have been times that she's felt like harming herself.

As their session ends, the therapist asks her to fill out some paperwork.  What Sawyer doesn't realize that is that by signing the papers, she has unknowingly committed herself to 24 hours of observation in the Highland Creek Behavioral Center. Damn Sawyer, don't sign anything without looking at it!

Understandably upset, Sawyer doesn't grasp the situation.  She uses her one phone call to ring the police and demand they get her out because she's being kept against her will.  Needless to say, it gets her nowhere since detainees always want to get free from the facility.

Once in the ward, Sawyer gets in verbal altercations with other patients and ends up punching an orderly in the face.  Poor sweet stupid little Sawyer. That's not how you get out of an asylum.  In fact, her violent outburst gets her commitment changed from 24 hours to 7 days.

Another patient in the ward takes pity on her and gives her the best advice anyone is going to give her.  Ride out your time, don't upset anyone, keep your head down and don't make waves.  He tells her the whole thing is an insurance scam and that when insurance runs out, she'll be free.  But Sawyer is unable to control herself.  She screams, yells, throws things, and acts out.  Basically her aggression  gets her sedated and strapped to her bed.

To make matters worse, one day when Sawyer goes to get her medication, there is a new orderly that  Sawyer is convinced is her stalker.   His name is different, but she knows it's him.  Is Sawyer losing it? Is this a hallucination, or is he really her stalker?

The hardest thing about watching this movie is Sawyer can't help but get herself in deeper and deeper.  You just want to scream at her because if she could just keep from acting like a crazy person, she'd be so much better off. And it's hard to root for her since she's not a very sympathetic character.  You want root for the poor person who's been harassed by a stalker and unknowingly committed herself to an asylum, but Sawyer's just not very likable.

The most interesting thing about the film is it was shot on an iPhone.  Don't let that fool you into thinking this is one of those crappy amateur movies where the person behind the camera had no clue about what they were doing.   It's professionally shot, and looks good.   It makes me want to make a movie on my iPhone... which would totally be a crappy homemade movie shot by someone who had no clue what they were doing.

Amsterdamned (1988)

Something is coming out of the canals of Amsterdam.    People are being snatched off the streets, row boats are being tipped, and the hull of a large boat is destroyed so it will sink  - all for the purpose of murder.

Eric Vissar, one of the best detectives on the force, is assigned to the case.  When Eric goes to the scene of the first murder, a bag lady tells them that a monster came out of the canal and killed the victim.  Eric takes this with a grain of salt, but after a second body is found floating in the canal, he  starts to wonder if the killer might be a skin diver.

What makes this movie better than most is the location, especially an incredible boat chase through the canals of the city. Also there is a crazy scene with a corpse hanging from a bridge, where the boat full of screaming children can't stop before they hit it. So the corpse drags down the glass topped boat as those inside scream in terror.

King Cohen: The Wild World of Filmmaker Larry Cohen (2017)

The story of Larry Cohen is pretty amazing. He's written tons of movies, loads of television scripts, and done some directing as well.   This guy did incredible guerilla film making on the streets of New York without permits and did things that nowadays would probably get you shot. He put his cameras up high so people on the streets wouldn't know he was shooting a film.

Cohen is a good interview, although he may not always be truthful.  Listening to Fred Williamson talk about the discrepancy in Cohen's story versus what really happened is amusing. And while I totally believe Williamson, it still leaves Cohens story as an endearing tale by a guy who truly enjoys what he does.

This guy is amazing and continues to write all the time. I didn't realize all the movies and tv shows he'd written that I was familiar with. This is an entertaining documentary and offers insight into how he works.

Deadly Detention (2017)

It's as if they watched the Breakfast Club and said, what if we make all the characters unlikeable, make the dentention in a place where they can't escape, and have someone try to kill them.

Five kids are given detention in an old prison because there is an animal infestation at the school. The principal is supervising detention and there is animosity between her and some of the students.  When she is killed, the others fear that they will be next and try to figure out how to escape. That's all there is to it.

This isn't very good, but the thing that drove me insane was that the skateboarder can barely stand up on her board. Seriously, either ditch the skateboard or hire an actress who at a minimum can push off and balance on the board.

Dead Rising: Watchtower (2015)

Reporter Chase and his camerawoman are inside the quarantine zone trying to get the scoop on the latest zombie outbreak. The government is dispensing Zombrex to those who are infected. But something goes wrong and people start to turn.

Everyone starts running for their lives, and Chase gets separated from his cameraperson.  As more people start to turn, Chase has to figure out how to get to the edge of the quarantine zone where the military control the exit.

Unknown to the survivors, the military have been told to shut the gate and not let anyone leave. There is fear of the virus spreading outside the quarantine  zone.  Even those who appear to be fine are left inside to fend for themselves.

Chase teams up with two survivors in a bid to escape.. But along with zombies, there is a gang of bikers who are not going to help anyone but themselves - and they are pretty excited about looting and killing.

Nothing special or new about this one.

The Lost Empire (1984)

When her cop brother is killed by robotic ninjas while investigating a robbery,  policewoman Angel vows to make whoever was behind the robbery pay.  Her boyfriend Rick works at the FBI and word is that it has something to do with an undead wizard named Lee Chuck and someone named Dr. Sin Do.

Sin Do has a yearly fighting competition at his island estate and only trios are allowed to enter.  This way it will keep spies from sneaking into the competition.  It is obvious that their logic is extremely flawed.

Angel recruits a Native American woman and a female prisoner  fresh out of a mud wrestling fight in the prison yard to make up their team of three. They travel to the island to compete, go through a rigorous screening process which involves pointless nudity, and compete in many lame events.  And just when you think this movie can't get any sillier, here comes a guy in a gorilla suit.

This movie is ridiculous and is fun to watch with other people. Angel wears shiny, sparkly, skin tight body suits.  Some characters voices are unnaturally high.  The ninjas seem to be supernatural when the store owner tries to shoot them, but when the cops arrive, the cops can shoot them.  Angel forgets her purse on top of the car when going to the island.  And to top it off, a woman on one of the other teams turns out to be a spy, which proves the rules about only trios entering is totally useless.

Get ready to hear music that starts with three notes that will drive you crazy trying to figure out what it sounds like.  It sounds like the first three notes of the Six Million Dollar Man theme.  My friends thought it sounded like the song Summer Breeze by Seals and Crofts.  And yeah, it sounds like that too.

Also watch for the lack of continuity in Koro's eyebrows.  First they look like caterpillars glued to his face. Then they are normal eyebrows. Then they are back to caterpillars.  It was so noticeable that at one point, I found myself wondering if it was supposed to be two different characters.

You Might Be The Killer (2018)

Chuck is working her job at the comic book store when her friend Sam calls up in a panic.  Sam's family owns a summer camp and he's the head counselor.   He and the other counselors have been getting the camp read for the arrival of the kids.

But things have gone horribly wrong and someone is killing the counselors.  Sam's afraid he's going to be the next to die and since Chuck is a horror movie fan, he figures she can help him figure out the killers next move.

Chuck urges Sam to stay calm and asks him questions to get an idea of what he's seen and who's been murdered. But Sam is having trouble remembering things and his answers don't always  make sense.  As she probes deeper into the events of Sam's night, Chuck realizes that things may not be as they seem and she asks if Sam's considered that he may actually be the killer.  Chaos ensues.

This is a fun movie, although I didn't always like the way it jumped forward and backward in time.  Watching Sam struggle with the reality of what is going on and piecing together what's already happened is amusing.  The lead actor was the stoner in Cabin in the Woods and Chuck is played by the always likable Alison Hannigan, 

The Elf (2017)

After random scenes of a toymaker, we jarringly head to present day where a young woman enters a shop and is soon followed by a young man. Who are they? Do they own this shop? I mean, I assume it's a shop because the guy walked in a glass door and the interior looks like a second hand store.  Did the toy maker own a second hand store? What is going on?  There's no context.

It is later established that Nick and his girlfriend Victoria were at a toy shop. It is not clear how this is a toy shop since there was a severe lack of toys. I saw cards, Cd's, clothing, paper products, and old photographs -  everything except toys.

When Victoria finds photos of kids with dolls, she freaks out. The photos span a number of years and she believes it's the same toy in all the photos. I'm not sure why she'd make that assumption. If someone makes toy trains, and you see multiple kids over a span of 90 years with a toy train, you don't just scream, "oh my god the same train is in all these photos!" You assume they all have trains made by the same toymaker.

Nick goes into a dark room with a Christmas theme and finds a box with a cursed elf. Of course he does. Victoria talks on the phone to a friend and wonders where Nick is. There's discussion of a Christmas party so I guess it's Christmas time. But there's no snow and nothing yet to clue us in that it's the holiday season.

It's hard to tell what is going on in this film as there are only brief clues about who the characters are  and no exposition. At one point, Victoria says to her friend,"You know how Nick feels about this time of year. " No. No we don't. We don't have a clue about how Nick feels because no ones told us anything about him.  So is she saying he has issues with Christmas? If so, why is he in the Christmas room feeling an elf?

If Nick has holiday issues, then Victoria is extremely insensitive.  She's decorated the interior of their house with strings of Christmas lights, and has neglected to tell Nick she's decided to throw a Christmas party.  Christmas is important to her, so to hell with Nicks crippling anxiety and past trauma. She wants to see her family. Oddly she's also decided to invite people she's never met from the small town that Nick seems to despise. 

The other troubling aspect of this relationship is that they've only known each other three months, they're engaged and planning marriage.  If she's already indifferent to your feelings when she's still in the infatuation stage, you've got a long road ahead of you, Nick.

Victoria tells her friend she really doesn't know anything about Nick. What is going on? Why are you marrying this guy? And where is her friend located? She's telling Victoria to come home? And why does Victoria's family drive so far  to go to a party they don't even want to go to? Argh!

Okay it is confirmed that Nick hates Christmas. There was an incident when he was a child and now he's stuck in the middle of these family holiday festivities and her family seem to hate him, for reasons unexplained?  Holy crap, run Nick, run!

Another strange incident - carolers show up at the door to sing Xmas carols. When the family say thanks but no thanks, the lead caroler turns aggressive and nastily yells, "Hey we came a long way to be here." Hey jerk, you can't just show up unannounced on peoples lawns and then get mad at them for not meeting your needs. 

As things go from bad to worse, people start dying. At one point, Victoria calls her friend back home - which is strange since she should call 911 - and says there's a killer in the home. Her friends first question is, what does he look like. Seriously? And to make things stranger, the obnoxious friend is in the drive through while on the phone and is yelling at the person working the drive through to shut up.  Idiot, don't ever mess with people who make your food.

This movie is tough to get through and if you manage to stick it out, you will not be rewarded. Watch only if you're trying to watch every Christmas related horror film that exists.

House of the Witch (2017)

On Halloween night, a group of teenagers head to the abandoned mansion for a party.  The guys plan to scare the girls so one of them went over to the house that afternoon to prepare for when they get there.

The group parks down on the street rather than drive up the long driveway because they say they don't want the cops to notice.  This seems kind of odd since wouldn't the cops notice a truck parked on the street near the abandoned mansion? But not to worry, when they get inside, they turn on the lights so.... yeah, they could have parked at the front door.

Things start out fun but turn creepy very quickly.  One kid sees a photograph change, another sees a sheet on a chair change shape, and the phonograph starts after someone bumps into it. When someone gets injured, one of the girls decides to leave, but the front door won't open.

Here's a lesson for you kids. If you ever think that the surface of a mirror, or wall, or any solid item is not actually solid anymore, don't stick your freaking fingers into it.  Find an inanimate object to test your theory.

There isn't anything new in this and it's average at best. Watch for the ridiculous scene where kids hear someone coming and try to hide, but leave the flashlight on the iphone on, which would give them a way in a dark room - or even a slightly shady room.

Also there is one line that I can't believe got into the film.  Was the script wrong and no one noticed, or did the kid just mispronounce the word?  I can't believe no one caught this.  As the truck drives up to pick up the kids, one yells, "Here comes the calvary."  It's cavalry, dumbass.

Big Man Japan (2007)

A giant man fighting strange monsters? This must be fantastic! Nope, it's another misleading trailer that makes the movie seem more exciting than the slow paced, pseudo documentary that's delivered.

Masaru is a sad sack of a man. He lives in a small house with a stray cat.  He doesn't see his daughter much, his ex-wife doesn't think much of him, and he makes a meager living.  He can't  ever go on vacation because he never knows when he's going to get a call to action.

Masaru has the family honored role of Big Man Japan. When there is a monster causing havoc, the government calls him to take care of the problem.  Masaru then rides his scooter to the nearest electrical facility, goes through a ritual, and gets  electrocuted to grow into a towering giant who can take on the rampaging monster.

You'd think that people would appreciate his efforts, but they don't.  They're annoyed at the property damage and noise that the monster fights cause. And when a monster baby falls and dies during one of the fights, people turn against Masura and call him a baby killer.

It's a very strange movie and the monsters are ridiculous. But the lead character is very dull and most of the movie is him talking.  To get an idea of what it's like, imagine if The Office were almost two hours of the camera following Toby when he was at his most low key.