The Facility (2012)

A research facility recruits volunteers to test a new drug, which is a crap shoot for anyone who volunteers. Since this is a horror movie, you know something is going to go horribly wrong.  The group of strangers are housed together in one wing of an isolated facility which has no other inhabitants.  They are forced to give up their cell phones and have no radio, TV or other electronic devices.

Since there is nothing to do except interact, we get some background info on each one as they converse.  Finally a movie in which the exposition is between strangers, rather than close friends who should already know everything that is being revealed.

The subjects are individually inoculated at regular intervals and each is scheduled for a series of shots. When the first volunteer has an adverse reaction to the injections, the rest of the group demands answers.  They are not comforted by the Doctors vague words and each fears they will have a similar reaction.

When the second person injected has a different, but equally bad reaction, the group panics and starts calculating when each person received their shot.  The thinking is that they watch whoever is going to potentially be affected next.  So if someone isn't affected, there's no way to know whether it's the person who received the placebo, or they are immune to the reaction.

The first thirty minutes of the movie are slow. It's British so that's not surprising. Then the action starts as people begin reacting badly to the drugs.  But then the movie starts to drag again near the end, so... meh.

Barricade (2012)

A year after his wife dies, Terry brings their children to an isolated cabin in them mountains that their mother used to love.  And by cabin, they mean a huge home.

Terry instructed the store owner to decorate for Christmas, so there is a tree all set up, and the kids favorite foods are plentiful in the freezer in the basement.  The next day they head out to play in the snow before a storm rolls in, but think they see someone outside.

Strange things start happening. Someone dumps toiletries all over the bathroom and Terry's medication disappears.  The kids are getting nervous, and everyone is getting the strange cough that the store owner had.

After seeing someone running by the shed, they bolt back to the house and lock the doors.  Terry decides to barricade his family inside to lock out whatever menace might be out there.

It's not clear if: Terry's missing medication means he's going psycho; everyone is coming down with a mystery disease that alters their reality; the cabin is haunted by an evil presence; or someone is truly outside stalking them.  When you find out what's going on, you'll be highly disappointed.

Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death (2015)

During war torn London in World War II, children were sent out of the city to protect them from being killed in bombings.  The head mistress Jean and teacher Eve are tasked with accompanying a group of children as they journey out of the city. At the last minute a young boy, whose parents were killed in a bombing the night before, is added to their charge.  The boy is still in shock and rendered mute, and Eve feels protective of him.

The group takes up residence in an isolate manor, which can only be reached by a road which disappears at high tide.  Eve feels uneasy there. It's been abandoned for years and she thinks she's seen someone else on the island.

After the deaths more than one child, Eve wants to leave, but the stern headmistress won't let her take the children with her.  So Eve and Harry, a pilot she met on the train, start looking into the history of the home and discover the story of the Woman in Black.

I really liked the first Woman in Black movie, but this one was disappointing.  It's very slow paced and there isn't much supernatural action.   The ghost only appears a few times, and Eve's repeated shouts for Edward get really annoying.  Also for an area that is under blackout rules, they sure have a lot of candles at night.  There isn't another homes for miles, so the light would be a prime target for bombers. So much for keeping the children safe....oh yeah, and you moved into a haunted mansion.

Exeter (2015)

When the church decides to renovate an abandoned asylum, Father Conway supervises the volunteers helping to clean out the building. High school student Patrick is serious about this work, but his friend Brian decides the best thing about helping the church with the asylum is that it would be a great place to have a party.  Patrick is not amused.

That night, there is a huge party at the asylum.  After spending the night doing stupid things that teenagers do, they decide to try a party game where someone says an incantation which causes a volunteer to become stiff as a board and light as a feather. This  allows the volunteer to be lifted up using only their fingers.  Surprisingly volunteer Rory, Patricks younger brother, rises a few inches before they drop him back to the floor.  Everyone laughs and Rory runs off.

Later on, when Patrick tracks Rory down, he is violent and seemingly possessed.  They try to help him, but common sense goes out the window... oh  wait, they didn't have any to begin with. At this point, the group begins a constant stream of even worse decisions.  Will there ever be a movie where people don't want to cover up an accidental death by doing something to hide it that would make them look 100% guilty of murder, if discovered?

Before you know it, they're trapped, there's a demon in the asylum, rumors of dead orphans, and the trapped teens even manage to carve a ouija board out of an old piece of wood.   Where else can you see a bunch of teens google how to do an exorcism, and maybe even find an exorcism app for their phone?

The most amazing thing about this movie is everyone's cell phone has a pristine connection and can access the web.  But who brings a laptop to a party in an abandoned building anyway? Stupid kids.....

Satan's Blade (1984)

In celebration of Tony passing the bar, he and Al take their wives to the mountains for the weekend. While they're checking into the ski lodge, a group of women stop in looking for a room.

There happens to be one room that just opened up - due to a murder the night before.  The desk clerk doesn't want to tell them, but the old lady working with him says he can't rent the room due to the murder, and the legend. After everyone agrees they want to hear the story, she tells them about a killer who lives in the woods (or under the lake), and stalks all who come to the mountains.  Both groups decide to stay and end up in cabins next to each other.

I'm not sure if I'd stay there.  Although I must confess that one time I was traveling in a remote area far from home. It was getting late, and we just wanted to find a motel room.  We found a motel off the highway that had tons of customers and they had one room left.

But the desk clerk kept saying, "You want to stay here?... Are you sure you want to stay here?"  We did, but we were totally creeped out by his reaction, especially when we got in the room and there were trap doors in the ceiling and floor.  No idea why it he was confused that we wanted to stay there.  I'm wondering if perhaps it was known for drugs sales or prostitution. But at the time, we wondered if someone was going to kill us as we slept... yet we still took the room because we gambled on the odds of actually being murdered.  So I guess I can't fault the girls for taking the murder room. I mean, what are the chances someone would get murdered in the same cabin a day or two later?

As you can imagine, it was not a good decision to stay in the murder cabin, or to even go to the mountains.  The nearby lake contains Satan's Blade, a knife which glows red when it is first released into the wild, waiting for some poor unsuspecting schlub to come along and grasp it's handle.  Because who wouldn't grab a huge knife stuck into a tree in the middle of nowhere?

The strange thing is that in the extras there is an interview with the director, where he talks about how important continuity is to him. But one of the things that struck me when I watched the movie was that at one point Tony has a flaming torch in his hand. The next minute it's gone.  Since he was standing in the living room, he couldn't have just dropped it. What the hell?

This is not a great movie.  The acting isn't great.  The reactions of the bank tellers when they are shot, is so bad it's funny.  It's definitely a low budget flick and is the first movie made by the director.  In fact according to IMDB, it's the only movie he made. Overall it's fairly slow and mundane, but it might be fun to watch with a group of people.  I didn't hate it, but it doesn't fall into the category of so bad it's good.  It would probably be a great one for the guys from Riff Trax to tackle.


Bad sitcom dialogue with wacky inflections:

Al:  Hey counselor, we almost there yet? I'm starving.
Tony:  I'm driving as fast as I can.
Woman:  A little too fast maybe.
Al:  Ah, give him a break. It isn't every day you pass the bar exam.
Tony:  Listen to this. I'm the lawyer but he's defending me.
Woman:  Well, that's what Al's good for. He'll defend anyone.... especially if it means he gets to eat sooner.

Awkward model pose by blondie

Classic 80s wings 

Faux drunk

If only this were the killer

where the heck did they get the mask?

When there was a murder in your cabin last night, and there is
someone outside your window, don't open the door.

Boom mic alert

House of the Dead 2 (2005)

When a college professor experimenting with bringing the dead back to life is bitten by a subject, he becomes a stumbling zombie and triggers a campus outbreak of the walking dead.  29 days later (booooo), the military shows up to get a blood sample from the original zombie so that they can create a vaccine.

Alex aka Nightingale and Ellis, the two scientists/soldiers from the AMS (the government agency that deals with these sort of zombie things), are in charge with getting the blood. They are assigned a team from special forces who turn out to be the most rag tag, inept bunch.

The members of this elite military unit are incapable of following directions or keeping themselves from being killed.   They're out hunting zombies during an outbreak, but they're not going to pay attention to their surroundings, and even engage in hand to hand combat with the living dead. They do everything they're told not to do. Perhaps by special forces, they meant they ride to school in the special bus.

Since they don't know the zombie the outbreak started with, they randomly test the dead to see if they are the original carrier. This is insane.  It's not like they have a room full of twenty zombies and one is the source.  They're on a college campus that is overrun with the living dead.

The movie is not that interesting and will leave you with loads of questions:

• why did it take 29 days for them to go to the college? Did no one notice an entire campus had become zombies?
• Why is the lady Colonel relegated to a desk at the back of the firing range? This is not where an upper level military official should be sitting. Did she hit the glass ceiling? She's a woman and  in a wheelchair, double score.
• Why are Ellis and Nightingale not concerned about the blood spraying into their eyes, noses, and mouths? Ellis wipes the blood from his face right across his mouth and in several scenes there is zombie blood on his teeth.
• Is there any way they could have made the douchey guy even more unlikeable?  
• How did the fat guy get to be in special forces?  Did they figure all the others would be able to outrun him if they were attacked?
• If you need blood from the original zombie, the campus is going to be blown up, and the fate of man depends on this vaccine, why wouldn't you collect more than one vial?  
• If Nightingale earned her unwanted nickname in the Peace Corp, how does anyone in the military know about it?  It wouldn't follow her.
• Since zombies blankly stare at things, why insist that the fellow in the library sitting with a book can't be a zombie because they don't read?  Good god man, the campus is overrun, the guys not responding, and there's no reason to throw caution to the wind other than stupidity.

Reel Evil (2012)

Kennedy, Cory, and James have an appointment to meet with a well known director.  While Cory and James think the meeting is to talk about getting finances for a documentary they want to make, Kennedy has agreed shoot a behind the scenes feature to earn money for their own film.  So apparently they failed at crowd sourcing, borrowing from family and friends, living frugally, and the other things people do when pursuing their dreams.

It's surprising that a filmmaker with major studio backing would hire three unknowns with no experience.  As they talk about their own aspirations to make documentary films, the director gets all pissy and states, "It's not about you."  He may be a dick, but he's right.

When they show up the first day, they run into a strange guy outside with boils all over his face. He looks homeless, but they think it's a great prank.  They might want to consider he may actually be a hobo with boils who lives in the abandoned asylum.   Just saying.

It's amazing that these guys don't get fired the first day.  They know nothing about working on a set and don't seem to have the cranial capacity to figure it out.  The main rules would be don't get in peoples way, and don't piss them off.

Granted, people treat them terribly and the egos on the set are out of control, but the three up the ante with their cluelessness.   They're never where they're supposed to be. They leave the set to wander around the building and aren't available when called. They bother people who are working, and make numerous people angry.

The three friends wander off into the asylum to explore and do some filming.  As they walk around, a lighbulb goes off in Kennedys head and she says, "You guys wanted to make a documentary, right?  This is a documentary right here - the mental health of America."  Well that is going to be one crap-tastic documentary.

They've given no thought to what the documentary should focus on.  So they're just randomly shooting footage in an abandoned building.  Since they're not shooting what they were hired to do, it's highly likely they'll be fired, thus losing the money to make their documentary. And one night of random footage in an old building is not going to cut it as a documentary.

This was made by Full Moon and I believe was their first foray into found footage films.  I'm not a Full Moon fan, but it was better than a lot of the stuff they do. Having said that, the main characters are annoying, and make bad decisions. There's nothing to make you like them, or care if they live or die.  And just once could there be a found footage movie where ghosts don't walk straight up to the hidden cameras and make scary faces into the lens?

There is an inexplicable Scooby Doo scene with a shot of a hallway, and people going into one door, and then exiting through another door in another part of the hallway.  How did that happen, and more importantly, why don't any of them seem to notice?  There is some strange thing where the asylum seems to change and people get stuck in a loop, but geez, the first time it happens, no one says a word or even looks confused.

Contracted (2013)

Samantha moves back in with her mother while trying to work things out with her girlfriend, who she's been dating for ten months.  When she goes to a party at her friend Alices house, Alice encourages her to drink shots so Sam'll forget that her girlfriend isn't returning her calls.

Later that night a man hands her a drink telling her it's hers. Sam is so drunk she doesn't remember if it's hers or not, which is unfortunate because she forgets the cardinal rule of never accepting any open containers of alcohol.  She ends up in the mans car having sex, and it's later revealed that she was roofied.  Sam doesn't want anyone to know because she's worried her girlfriend will find out.

The next day, Sam isn't feeling well and believes it's a hangover, even though she keeps bleeding profusely.  When she wakes the day after still feeling poorly and having more symptoms, she heads to the doctor, but isn't forthcoming in answering his questions.  She's difficult and has a bad attitude, and downplays the amount of blood coming out of her.

The third day she gets even worse. Her Mom thinks she's on drugs again, and all her friends tell her she looks like crap.   The doctor doesn't have her blood work back yet, but based on her condition, he tells her not to have contact with anyone.  Sam isn't concerned about anyone else and ignores his advice. She visits a bar, her girlfriend, Alice, and arranges to meet with Riley, the guy who is politely stalking her.

The two biggest problems with this movie are that Sam is not a sympathetic character, and no one seems as concerned as they should be, based on Sam's physical deterioration. Her boss lets her work in the restaurant even though her eyes are blood red and she looks ill. I would not want anyone who looks like that to be my waitress or come anywhere near my food.

Although Sam has bled profusely from her private area, she minimizes it when talking to the doctor and doesn't even let him examine her.  Her eyes fill with blood so she puts on sunglasses.  Her fingernails fall off, and she keeps working at the restaurant, waiting on people and making food, yuck!  She looks terrible. Look at the DVD cover. That's how she looks on the third day and she's still got two people who are willing to kiss her and willing to have sex.  Come on!

While Sam wants to keep things quiet because she doesn't want her girlfriend to know she's had sex with someone else (and especially a man), she doesn't seem to grasp that she doesn't need to explain how she got it. She's sick and sometimes people get ill and never know how they caught something.

You'll want to slap Sam upside the head when she begins spitting blood as she's brushing her teeth one night. When she pulls a tooth out of her mouth, you'd think that would be what tips the scales, and along with every other symptom, sends her to the emergency room.  But Sam goes to bed.  What the hell? You just pulled a tooth out of your mouth. Get some help, now!

Also I'm not sure if whoever wrote the film summary doesn't understand what rape is, or they filmmakers were just trying to keep it a secret. But the description states Sam has a one night stand and she gets something much worse than an STD.  But a one night stand would be the term used for consensual sex, not when one person is incapacitated by a roofie.

Night Game (1989)

Former pro baseball player Mike Seaver is a detective in Galveston.  He wears the largest sunglasses known to man, and is engaged to a girl who is half his age, and whose mother he used to date in high school (yuck!) Even though Mike and Roxy aren't married yet, she's already irritated at the hours he keeps and all the emergency calls that keep interrupting their nights.

When a series of young blondes are killed late at night near the boardwalk, Mike is called to work the case.  When he arrives at the scene, he bangs heads with Broussard, his nemesis in the FBI.  Broussard is not pleased that Mike is poking around since he believes the case should be handled by the FBI. But Chief of Police Nelson runs interference and arranges for Mike to be the lead, and asks that both provide each other updates. As expected, Mike keeps Broussard out of the loop.

Mike figures out that a killing occurs every night there is a game in the Astrodome, and that the killer is using some kind of hook to kill his victims.  He's got to stop the killer before he kills again.  And since Mike's wife is a young blonde and she works on the boardwalk, he may want to be more careful about picking her up late at night, rather than forgetting to do so because he's on the case.

While this isn't ever going to be someone's favorite movie, and it's on the slow side, I still liked it.  It's got a good cast and I tend to be partial to amusement parks, which don't feature prominently, but there are still some nice shots of the boardwalk, beach, and amusement area.  Roy Scheider is Mike, the chief is played by Richard Bradford, and Paul Gleason (better known as the teacher in the Breakfast Club) plays Broussard.  Mike's girlfriend is played by Karen Young, and even after looking at her long list of roles, I'm still not sure why I recognize her.

Red Mitchell, who was the lead in low budget horror flick Forever Evil and resembles a cross between Jack Black and William Shatner, has a bit part as a guy who wants to use the phone booth.  The credits list his character as Fat Boy, which is pretty embarrassing especially since you wouldn't see him and immediately go, wow that guy is fat.

Red Mitchell really wants to use the phone

She died as she lived - with poofy 80s hair

Always love a good crane shot

Character actors Paul Gleason and Richard Bradford
check out the placement of umbrellas and chairs

Mikes sunglasses threaten to consume the rest of his face

Usually when an older gentleman asks a young woman in a crop
top to come over to his car, it's not because she's his fiancé

Why yes, I'm a young blonde alone last at night near
the boardwalk. Why do you ask?

the boardwalk and a killer on the loose

Wolfman (1979)

After his father dies, Colin Glasgow returns to his family home.  He is unaware that there is a family curse and his relatives have generously decided that he shall be the next to inherit it.  The relatives have altered his fathers will and conspired with the family attorney to make sure Colin stays at the home through the full moon.  Surprisingly, they didn't alter the inheritance and Colin receives his rightful inheritance.

Colin's grandmother is kept locked in the attic, which doesn't seem to phase him at all.  She seems fine to talk to - other than the assertion that the Reverend killed his father with a silver dagger because dad was a werewolf.   She also tells him the sign of a werewolf is a man with an index finger longer than his other fingers.

After some bad werewolf dreams, Colin sneaks off to the cemetery to dig up his father and finds the dreaded long index finger.  As he's climbing out of the grave, he's attacked by a wolf. The next thing he knows, he's in bed and it's the next morning. Surprisingly his clothing is intact, although his body is covered with thick fur.

As he checks himself for wounds, the actor looks relieved which was confusing until I discovered what I thought was a werewolf transformation was just the actors excessive body hair. Yikes!  Perhaps it would have been better for the actor to play this scene wearing a shirt to avoid confusing the viewer.

But the relief is short lived since when the moon is full, Colin changes into a chubby, almost cuddly, werewolf.  There's an unintentionally funny scene where a couple hears something outside their cabin and then a little werewolf face darts quickly into view, before darting back.  It looks like what kids do when they're pretending to be undercover.

This is a run of the mill, independent werewolf film.  Not much happens and acting leaves a lot to be desired.  Colin keeps things consistent by displaying no emotion or facial expressions throughout the film.  He's a cross between Lee Majors and a middle aged Elvis.  And I'm not sure if it's the Southern lilt to the peoples voices, but I kept hearing the butler call him Mr. Kotter.... until later I realized he was actually calling him Mr. Colin.

One of the bigger issues with the movie is that there's no consistency to the time period.  Based on the costumes and Colin's transportation, which is a surrey with the fringe on top, I thought the time period was the 1800s.  But then they go to a pub where records are playing on a victrola, and there is  a bully that looks like he'd be right at place in Newsies.  Later on there are a 1970s era stocking hat, jean jackets, modern styled coats, and I swear I thought I glimpsed a windbreaker.  The movie sometimes uses candles and lanterns, but other scenes have lights and there's a bare light bulb hanging in the shed.  And they have a telephone style which didn't come into use until the 1900s.

The change from man to werewolf is primitive even by 1950s standards.  Still photos are used to show the change, but they only use around five so it's pretty jarring.  Sunlight causes this werewolf fall over like a tree, which is pretty hilarious.  There's also a scene where he frees himself from chains and attacks the butler, who is walking unnaturally slow towards a wall, rather than exiting through the door where he might escape the oncoming wolf attack.

The most interesting thing about this movie is that Earl Owensby, who had no acting experience, decided he was going to make movies.  Owensby is quoted as saying, "Movies had always been a hobby. I actually woke up one morning and said 'I think I'll make a movie - I wonder how you do that?' " Nothing remarkable yet for indie movie makers, but Owensby was a successful business man. He set up his own studio in North Carolina with the belief that you didn't need to be in Hollywood to have a successful studio. He made a number of B-movies there in the 1970s and 80s.

Based on the clothing, it seemed they were in the 1800s....

...but then I saw this Peter Fonda looking guy with
the modern glasses, 70s collar, and 70s clothing

Jack-O (1995)

Little Sean Kelly has dreams about his ancestors and a crazy killer pumpkin man.  It turns out this is due to a curse on the family which plays out on the fifth generation.  And that poor cursed sucker is Sean.

When some drunken frat boys party in the graveyard, they set loose Jack-O to take his revenge.  Jack-O turns out to have a large pumpkin head and a scythe, but an unimpressive physique. So if you saw him, you'd be half scared and half thinking he's not strong enough to wield his deadly weapon.

Jack-O is on the look out for Sean, but he'll kill anyone who happens to get in his way, or is in the wrong place at the wrong time.    Since it's Halloween, people aren't that alarmed by a huge pumpkin headed loon.

Sean's family has a haunted house in their garage. They use it to make money for the homeless.  I've never heard of someone charging to enter a homemade, garage based haunt, but okay.  No one notices the huge freak with the pumpkin head even though he didn't pay to get in.

Linnea Quigley stars as Sean's babysitter.  The kid who plays Sean is the directors son.  Sean always has the same ho-hum look on face, and is never really expressive.

The movie has scenes with Cameron Mitchell and John Carradine, who had both already passed away by the time the movie was made.  In a blog post, director Steve Latshaw stated, "Carradine had died in Spain, back in 1988. Mr. Mitchell had passed away in the summer of 1994, just a few months earlier. But both men had been close friends of Fred Ray and Fred would periodically bring them into the studio and pay them a tidy sum to shoot some isolated scenes."  So this explains all the movies that these two show up in spouting insane or inane dialogue.  Smart way to sell a low budget film though.


If you're looking for a Halloween film you haven't seen, this will fit the bill. But you're looking for a good or scary movie then you'll want to pass.  It's your typical 90s generic Halloween film. If you want to know more about the movie, you can read the entire blog post by Steve Latshaw about the making of Jack-O. 

Poseidon Rex (2013)

When a college couple on vacation in Belize hire a boat for a snorkeling tour, they find a body floating in the middle of the ocean.  Bringing the man onboard, they discover he is still alive.  He tells them his name is Jax, but isn't keen on providing any other information.  They head to port for medical attention.

After some minimal bandaging from a Marine Biologist, Jax tells them he is a treasure hunter and needs their help.  The lure of treasure ensnares half of our college couple, while the other half glares and stays on the dock. Meanwhile on the other side of town, some silly looking gangsters wonder where Jax is and if he's stolen the treasure.

What no one realizes is that the explosion that injured Jax and killed those he was diving with, has released an ancient amphibious dinosaur, and it's hungry.  From that ridiculous plot and the silly cover, you can tell this isn't going to be much of a film.

This would be right at home on the Syfy channel.  The monster is inconsistent in it's size.  Sometimes it appears to be walking, yet the ocean is supposed to be far deeper than it's little feet could reach.  Watch for the underwater scenes where people are talking to each other even though they each have a breathing apparatus in their mouths.  Impossible!

Beaster Day: Here Comes Peter Cottenhell (2014)

A series of murders in a small town alarm the local residents and the hippie Mayor blames the deaths on the Amish (since they don't vote), and their unsafe farm tools.  This also allows him to promote his new line of safety tools, which are sold at outrageously inflated prices.

Meanwhile rich girl Brenda has been financially cut off by her father, and forced to find a job.  When she half heartedly applies to be a dog catcher at Dog Catcher in the Rye, she is dismayed to find that she actually gets the job.

She'll be partnered with Doug, who takes his job very seriously.  he is expecting to win Dog Catcher of the Year, since he wins every year, but is furious to find out that he's come in second to new guy Hector.  To make things worse, Doug likes Brenda, but she's interested in Hector.  So Doug's not having a good day.

With the number of headless bodies increasing, the Mayor is urged to cancel the Easter celebration.  But as with most mayors in horror movies, he risks the publics lives for the money that will be made during the yearly celebration.

The killer is a giant rabbit of unknown origin, and when Doug crosses it's path, no one will believe him.  Can't blame them, but on the other hand, where the hell does a giant rabbit hide in a small town?  

This is another low budget movie where the animal on the DVD cover looks nothing like the actual rabbit in the film.  The rabbit is hilariously awful in that it moves as if it's a marionette handled by a one armed man who knows nothing about puppeteering.   It's as if it's just dragged across the scene.  While this is a comedy, it's not clear if it's supposed to be as bad as it looks.

Dude Bro Massacre III (2015)

Dude Bro Massacre III is a slasher parody made by the group behind 5 Second Films. It's introduced as the last remaining copy of the Dude Bro Massacre trilogy.  The story is that all three films were destroyed.  There is one remaining copy which is on VHS and was taped from a late night TV broadcast back in the late 1980s.  Be prepared for an experience right out of 1980s VHS home taping, where there are snippets of advertising at each commercial break as the taper tries to guess where to pause and re-start the recording for minimal interruptions.

Since there is no Dude Bro Massacre I or II, the film recaps the story via flashbacks.  In part one, a serial killer named Mother stalks a fraternity, until she is dispatched by one of the brothers.  The killers daughter removes her face and returns in the sequel to once again stalk the frat that killed her mother.  Referred to as Motherface, the killer is dead at the end of the second film. But as we all know from Friday the 13th, death never stops a killer.

After his twin brother is murdered, Brent decides to join the same college fraternity and investigate his death.  A hazing incident gone wrong results in the pledges causing a plane crash.  The frat is kicked off campus and ends up in a cabin on the lake where the guys flounce around like the girls in most slasher flicks.  Soon frat boys are dying and the rest are trying to figure out who the killer is, and if Motherface may somehow be back from the dead.

This movie is not for everyone.  Some of the humor is really juvenile, but there are also a lot of laugh out loud moments.  It would have been better if they tightened it up a bit to make the run time shorter.   Overall I enjoyed it, but some of it just didn't work.  On the other hand, my friends loved it.

Watch for Andrew WK, Patton Oswald, and Greg Sestero from The Room, as well as a few other cameos.

An American Werewolf In London (1981)

While backpacking through Great Britain, David and Jack decide to stop in a small town for something to eat and drink.  The only pub is called the Slaughtered Lamb, and the patrons are not welcoming.  After some awkward exchanges, the two friends decide to leave and are warned to stay on the road and not go onto the moors.  This is the same advice given to them earlier by a farmer who gave them a lift.

The two trek into the night and soon find themselves in the middle of the moors, having ventured off the road while they were talking.  They would put the warnings down to local superstition except they can hear the sounds of an unknown animal who seems to be circling them.  A decision to head back to the pub is made too late as the men realize they are lost and the animal comes out of nowhere to attack.

Three weeks later David wakes up in the hospital.  He's told that Jack is dead and the lunatic who attacked them was killed by townsfolk who witnessed the attack.  But David insists it was an animal that attacked them.

While coping with what he's learned has gone on in the past three weeks he's been unconscious, David begins to have nightmares. He also starts seeing the corpse of Jack, who warns him that he will change on the full moon because they were attacked by a werewolf.  This isn't something you can say to a doctor and be taken seriously, especially when you believe it was a wolf that attacked you.

An American Werewolf in London was the second horror movie I saw in the theater.  I remember holding my hands in front of my eyes to block the carnage on the screen.  The blood and guts made me queasy, and the movie scared me.  Now that I'm used to watching horror, it doesn't have the same effect, but the movie stands up over time and is still a good watch.

The werewolf makeup by Rick Baker is still fantastic by todays standards.  No CGI for the transformation, and a huge step up from the series of still shots superimposed over each other like in the old Universal Monsters films.  The dvd I watched has a bonus features regarding the makeup, and Baker definitely gave them their moneys worth on the effects.

This is one of the best werewolf movies.  It's got a good story, great effects, and some great comedic moments.  Definitely worth viewing.

Sorority Row (2009)

After her boyfriend cheats on her, Megan and her sorority sisters come up with the brilliant plan of playing a prank to get revenge.  They provide her boyfriend Garrett with some pills they tell him are  roofies. Super creepy Garrett doses Megan, and waits for her to pass out.  But when Megan vomits and goes into convulsions, he panics and calls for help.  The girls insist that she needs immediate medical attention and load her into their car.

But instead of driving to the hospital, they purposely take a wrong turn, while Megan pretends to be getting worse.   After they arrive at an old quarry, the girls pretend that Megan is dead.  Funny joke so far, kids.  To make things even funnier, they state they need to cover up her death to avoid ruining their futures.  The question is how to get rid of the body?  They decide they can either dump it down into the mine shaft, or chop it up into pieces using sharp rocks.

Seriously? Why would anyone use a sharp rock to cut up a body?  As with all pranks in horror movies, someone ends up dead.  The victim is killed by being stabbed in the chest with a tire iron.  No one shall ask how a tire iron with a blunt end is able to stab someone in the heart. It would be more likely to break their rib cage or sternum, which might possibly piercing a lung or heart, but that's not what we're looking at here.

Although they disagree on how to handle the situation, in the end, the body is dumped down the mine. Then they head back to school pretending to have no idea what happened to Megan.

A year later, everyone is ready to graduate college and it's party time.  But someone is killing the girls in the sorority who were involved in that fateful trip to the mine.  There are some red herrings, and the sudden appearance of the Megans younger sister who plans to pledge the sorority. Argh! Honest to god kids, stop thinking that hiding a dead body is going to make your problems go away.  

There's nothing new or anything original, and you've seen the characters before, but it wasn't bad.  Ellie was the most annoying characters and you just wanted to punch her in the head to get her to stop whining.  I once heard someone say that Rumor Willis has a potato head. So now every time I see her in a movie, all I can see is a damn talking potato perched on her shoulders.

GPS: The Movie (2007)

Bob and Andrew enjoy geocaching challenges and are a team that compete against others.  This involves using GPS coordinates to race to the location of the cache and be the first to locate whatever is inside.  Not sure what the end result of winning will be, but these two are willing to risk serious injury and even death. They race down narrow, winding wooded roads at a high rate of speed,  pass on a double yellow line, and do what they need to in an attempt to outmaneuver their competitors in the  other car.

Their most recent challenge is from a college friend who recently disappeared, after being charged with the theft of two million dollars.  Bob and Andrew hope that the cache they are seeking contains part of the money.  This doesn't make much sense since if their friend has that much money, he could use that to disappear. Also they don't even consider if they knowingly accept stolen money, they could later face legal ramifications.

They decide to accept the GPS treasure hunt challenge since they are already heading to the area to go camping with some friends.  They plan to keep the mission a secret from the group until they need to fill them in.

After trekking into the woods with their friends, they locate a small coffin that contains Polaroids of a kidnap victim with the words don't let me die written on them.  The group disagrees as to how this should be handled.  Some want to go back to the car, but Bob and Andrew convince the others to continue by appealing to their greed.  They lie and tell them there is the potential of a $50,000 payout as part of the geocache. This goes over better than what becomes the secondary task which is rescuing the kidnap victim.

These kids are freaking crazy.  There is no way you should head towards the coordinates where there is someone who may be a killer, but at the very least is someone willing to kidnap and torture another person.  It's just not going to end well, and you're far more likely to survive if you call the police.  But players gotta play and they're off.   This is a low budget movie with characters that are mostly annoying.

Roboshark (2015)

An alien sphere of indeterminate intent falls into the ocean, and is eaten by a shark who within  seconds is transformed into Roboshark, a CGI creature that is familiar with social media.

Meanwhile wacky weather girl Trish is getting ready for work. She wants to be a serious reporter, but always gets the lame third rate assignments.  So when she and her camera crew discover the army setting up a command post in a fenced off area, she knows something big is going on.  No one shall ask why a top secret military command post is being set up in a field across from a popular coffee shop, or why the women and children in the background weren't cleared from the area.

Trish's husband Rick works for the city monitoring the local water supply.  Alarms are going off in multiple sectors and nothing makes sense on their map. Then the military shows up and cuts off all communication with the outside world.  Rick worries about his wife and daughter Melody, who should be at school but decided to join mom Trish after seeing a news broadcast by the stations star reporter.

Since Melody doesn't like this nasty reporter stealing her mom's thunder, and no one believes her mom's story about a shark attack in the coffee shop, Melody starts posting video of Roboshark and insisting he's just misunderstood.  It's not clear how Melody plans to explain this theory to the families of the innocent people Roboshark has murdered.

And make no mistake, Roboshark is quite the killer.  He bursts out of faucets, cuts through tile floors  like they're water, and does laps in the high school pool.  The military are desperate to stop him. So they hire the one person they believe is up for the task, Bill Glates... yeah you heard me, Glates with an L.

This is one ridiculous movie.  In some ways, it's hilarious, but overall it's average and not very engaging.  It's your typical Syfy channel movie. It has a fantastic title and idea, but mediocre execution.  This one contains a classic exchange between Rick and Melody where she tells him that Roboshark is following her.  As any father would, he urges her to get away from the killer shark, but Melody corrects the misperception by noting that she's not in danger. Roboshark is following her on Twitter.  ARGH!!   That's right. Roboshark has a twitter account.

Be prepared to watch bad CGI and see Rick chew more scenery than Roboshark.

Daughter of Darkness (1990)

After her mother dies, Kathy goes to Romania to find her father. Kathy is an only child and has no other living relatives. So she's willing to overlook that fact that her parents never married, and her father deserted her mother prior to Kathys birth.

Arriving in Romania, she pays a visit to the US Embassy.  All she has is a twenty year old photo of her parents, her fathers name and an old address. Devlin, who works at the embassy,  agrees to make some inquiries regarding her father.

He also warns her to be careful wandering the streets and doing her own research.  Romania is a police state. It's very dangerous to be wandering the streets when not familiar with local laws and customs, or the bad areas of town.  Kathy promises to be careful and immediately goes traipsing off down a dark alley when she spies an area that looks like something she's seen in her dreams.

She locates the address where her father used to work and asks the man inside for help. He looks exactly like the man in the photograph of her parents. Surprisingly, Kathy doesn't notice. She hands him the photo of her father and asks for information.

After an awkward pause, she is told the man in the photo used to work there, but died years ago after being hit by a car.  Despondent about her fathers death, Kathy crashes a fancy party at the Embassy so she can talk to Devlin.  I'm not sure that Kathy understands what Embassy's do.

Since she doesn't know anyone else in town, Kathy tells Devlin about finding out her father is dead, and how she's been having dreams about places in Romania that she's never been, but is now stumbling upon. Another awkward silence ensues, as Devlin tells her he's not a psychiatrist and that he can't counsel her on her crazy dreams or dead father.

Kathy ends up at a bar where she previously ran into the handsome Gregorio, who is willing to take on her counseling, which is unfortunate since he's a lounge singer and a vampire.  Kathy has no idea what she's infer, and neither does the viewer since we're stuck on this journey with dopey Kathy making bad decisions and for all her deja vu, can't even recognize her own father who looks exactly like he does in her photo.  Yes, it's a number of years later and he should look older. But he could be dying his hair or be especially well preserved.  Of course, he's actually a vampire, but that would be a ridiculous thing to consider... except she's in Romania and his family castle is in Transylvania.

This TV movie stars Mia Sara. The name sounded familiar but I couldn't place it.  But as soon as I saw her, I recognized her as Ferris Buellers girlfriend.  The film also stars Anthony Perkins as her vampire father.  IMDB lists this as a TV movie, and while the script has the pacing and tame scares of a TV movie, there is some nudity in it.

It's fairly typical TV vampire movie where our unsuspecting heroine never suspects that anything strange is going on, and is completely naive that it's not a good idea to trust a handsome stranger that you met in a bar in a foreign country that's in the midst of political oppression.  The most interesting thing about this movie is when a vampire feeds on a young woman, a small circle opens up in the tip of his tongue which seems to have lots of little teeth. So that's a unique way to feed.

Hansel and Gretel (2015)

In the Asylum sequel to a movie I didn't see, Gretel owns a quaint bakery and Hansel travels the world in a van and kills witches.

After a long absence, Hansel returns to reconnect with Gretel.  When one of their friends is kidnapped, they team up to rescue him, but along the way, there is a disturbing trail of body parts.  To complicate matters, the witches cast a spell on Gretel and plan to terminate Hansel with Gretels help.  It's Hansel vs. Gretel in the ultimate.... yeah, it's not the ultimate of anything.  It's the type of movie that is okay to have on while you're doing something else.