2012: Supernova (2009)

Scientists in a race to stop a supernova headed towards Earth decide to try their top secret computer program.  But while trying to access it, lead scientist Kelvin is attacked by a masked intruder who tries to gain access to the system.  But the intruder is denied during the fight - chop socky!

The scientists wife and daughter (who look too much alike and are often interchangeable) are trying to get to the base as that is the safest place.  But instead they spend most of the movie driving poorly, wrecking cars, retracing their steps or running across the desert.  Silly women!

While the movie has many ridiculous moments, there are two that stand out.  The first is when the mother and daughter are driving one of their many cars down the road.  The daughter screams "Look out!" and the mother swerves off the road, risking their lives and wrecking another car.  The ridiculous part is that if they'd just kept driving straight, everything would have been fine.

The other one is during the fight in the secret computer room, when the mystery masked intruder makes an exclamation and the voice is obviously female.  Yet Kelvin is apparently only book smart as he can't figure out the masked fiends identity - even though there is only one woman in the entire base.  Oh silly scientist, should you really be in charge of saving the earth from destruction?

Grizzly Park (2008)

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

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

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

Ice Queen (2005)

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

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

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

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

Dead Air (2009)

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

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

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

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

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

Trackman (2007)

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

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

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

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

Wolves Bayne (2009)

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

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

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

Plaguers (2008)

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

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

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

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

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

I Am Omega (2007)

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

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

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

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

REC (2007)

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

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

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

Wake the Witch (2010)

aka Awaken the Witch

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

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

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

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

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

Hatchet II (2010)

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

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

Alien Raiders (2008)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jonah Hex (2010)

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

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

Children of the Corn 7: Revelation (2001)

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

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

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

Rise of the Undead (2005)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Venom (2005)

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

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

The Hazing (2004)

aka Dead Scared

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

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

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

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

The Fear Chamber (2009)

A serial killer who sometimes paints his face like a Juggalo is abducting young women.  Detective Nick Ferguson, who was stabbed in the chest and let the killer escape, vows to track the maniac down due to his guilt that there are more victims.  Nick starts having visions of girls that are abducted by this madman.

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

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

Don't Go In the Cellar (2008)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Deadfall Trail (2009)

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

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

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

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