Archive for the ‘Horror’ Category
Friday, April 29th, 2022
I was thinking about STREET TRASH (1987) after I revisited the TOXIC AVENGER series a couple months back. I had seen the movie as a teen and all I really remembered was a part where some dude is taking a piss and his dick gets ripped off and a bunch of guys play keep away with it. Of course, any movie would be proud to have a memorable scene like that, and most filmmakers would tip their hat to it, just out of professionalism. But it is widely known that TOXIC AVENGER director Lloyd Kaufman hates STREET TRASH and the people behind it. I heard him grumble about it at a book signing, and he refers to it sometimes in his books, without really going into specifics. People ask him about it in interviews, but he’ll just make a joke. The best explanation seems to be that he thinks it’s a rip off of the Troma style. Also, there was apparently some incident involving its “little shit” director Jim Muro on an episode of The Morton Downey, Jr. Show.
It definitely traffics in a similar in-your-face repulsiveness/taboo-violating to the Troma movies. It takes place among a community of homeless alcoholics in Brooklyn and uncomfortably blurs the line between offensive caricature and (very mildly) sympathetic portrayal. I can’t think of a character in the movie that’s not intentionally repellent, but the movie at least recognizes that they’re up against a cruel and unjust world. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bryan Singer, David Sperling, J. Michael Muro, Tony Darrow, Vic Noto
Posted in Comedy/Laffs, Horror, Reviews | 16 Comments »
Tuesday, April 12th, 2022
BLOODY MUSCLE BODY BUILDER IN HELL (1995) is a movie I watched partly because it was described as “the Japanese EVIL DEAD” and partly because it was called BLOODY MUSCLE BODY BUILDER FROM HELL. It’s a short, very low budget movie that does indeed pay tribute to the early works of Sam Raimi. I like seeing his influence reach across oceans and cultures like that.
In a prologue, a woman catches a guy named Naoto cheating and tries to stab him, so he kills her and buries her under the house. Years later, the house is rumored to be haunted. The man’s son Shinji, who is introduced lifting weights with a Muscle & Fitness magazine nearby, has inherited the house, and agrees to bring his ex-girlfriend Mika there, because she writes about hauntings for a living. They bring along an uptight psychic named Mizoguchi for his expertise (though Shinji thinks he’s full of shit). (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Japanese horror, no budget horror
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 5 Comments »
Tuesday, March 22nd, 2022
DEADLY GAMES (1982) – not to be confused with the much better DEADLY GAMES (1989) a.k.a. DIAL CODE SANTA CLAUS – is a slasher movie that I guess was very rare on video until now. I never came across it during my Slasher Searches, but now Arrow put it out on a nice blu-ray.
This is hardly one of the greats, but you know me, I’m a scholar, and I like seeing all the different variations and permutations of the formula. This one is interesting in that it takes place in a little bit more of a world of adults than most of them. And it’s not one of those crude regional movies – for the most part the production values and acting are slick and professional. And Steve Railsback is in it! If Steve Railsback is in it it’s a real movie.
The deadly games begin when Linda Lawrence (Alexandra Morgan, THE HAPPY HOOKER GOES HOLLYWOOD) is alone in her fancy hillside house and gets creepy phone calls from a strange man (calling from a phone booth improbably located in sight of her isolated home). She’s scared, then convinces herself she’s fine. She talks to a boyfriend on the phone and tells him, “No, I don’t look like Janet Leigh” before getting in the shower. Always the PSYCHO shower scene references in these things. Anyway, a guy in a ski mask attacks her and she falls out the window. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alexandra Morgan, Colleen Camp, Jere Rae Mansfield, Jo Ann Harris, June Lockhart, Sam Groom, Scott Mansfield, slashers, Steve Railsback
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 16 Comments »
Thursday, March 17th, 2022
WRONG TURN (2021) was marketed as a remake of WRONG TURN (2003), but is I think either a bonafide reboot (starting over from the beginning) or un-subtitled sequel (after they dropped the original title, WRONG TURN: THE FOUNDATION). If you consider the premise of the six previous WRONG TURN movies to be “travelers are hunted by a family of deformed cannibals,” then this is not a remake. It’s more like a re-asking of the question “what if some young people got attacked in some woods in West Virginia?” that gets a different answer.
I like the structure of it. It begins with grey-haired real estate agent Scott Shaw (Matthew Modine, TRANSPORTER 2) out of his element driving through Appalachia in search of his missing daughter Jen (Charlotte Vega, AMERICAN ASSASSIN). He finds an inn that she and her friends stayed at, and only knows they meant to hike an Appalachian trail. The police chief isn’t much help and also asks “Who’s the Black fella?” when he sees her boyfriend Darius (Adain Bradley, 2 episodes of Riverdale) in a photo. Locals at a bar basically tell Mr. Shaw to give up because if she got lost in those woods she’s surely dead. Rude. But he says he’s not gonna give up. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Adain Bradley, Adrian Favela, Alan B. McElroy, Bill Sage, Charlotte Vega, Dylan McTee, Emma Dumont, Matthew Modine, Vardaan Arora
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 6 Comments »
Tuesday, March 15th, 2022
CURFEW is a 1989 New World Pictures joint, a kinda sleazy, kinda odd home invasion thriller that I never heard of until Vinegar Syndrome recently released it on blu-ray. In the dream-like opening scene, a guy named Bobby Joe Perkins (John Putch, JAWS 3-D, MACH 2) excitedly cuts a piece of cake for a not-very-enthusiastic-looking young woman. Suddenly a menacing man appears at the door – it’s his brother Ray Don (Wendell Wellman, SUDDEN IMPACT), who storms in and attacks the young woman, over Bobby Joe’s protests.
Then all the sudden the Perkins brothers are in prison together. Then all the sudden they’re out of prison together. At times the editing of this movie is incoherent, but there are other times when it’s got a good momentum to it. They stop to talk to some ranchers, cut to the ranchers already dead and the brothers wearing their clothes. Some of it works. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Christopher Knight, Gary Winick, John Putch, Kyle Richards, Peter Nelson, Wendell Wellman
Posted in Horror, Reviews, Thriller | 4 Comments »
Monday, March 14th, 2022
FUTURE SHOCK is a 1994 horror(ish) anthology, it seems very made-for-cable, though it apparently was made-for-video. Or at least as a compilation it was – I believe it’s made from two pre-existing short films tied following a new story and a wraparound.
The connective material stars none other than Martin Kove, who was in a prolific post-KARATE-KID period of his career – that year he also appeared in WYATT EARP, WYATT EARP: RETURN TO TOMBSTONE (yes, a TV movie that came out the same year as the better known one), ENDANGERED, SAVAGE LAND, GAMBLER V: PLAYING FOR KEEPS, DEATH MATCH, CAGNEY & LACEY: THE RETURN, plus a Burke’s Law and a Kung Fu: The Legend Continues. Here he’s rocking Swayze/Gibson style long hair, but playing a mostly buttoned down character, Dr. Langdon (yes, THE DA VINCI CODE was originally written as FUTURE SHOCK fan fiction but Kove refused to be in the movies because he knew they were gonna be fuckin boring, that’s why they almost didn’t make them and obviously regretted when they did [citation not necessary]), a psychiatrist who uses virtual reality to help his patients face their fears. (You see? In the form of little Twilight-Zone-ish short stories.) (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Amanda Foreman, anthology, Bill Paxton, Brion James, David DuBos, Eric Parkinson, Greg Grunberg, J.J. Abrams, James Gray, James Karen, Martin Kove, Matt Reeves, Oley Sassone, Richard Hatem, Rick Rossovich, Sydney Lassick, Tim Doyle, Vivian Schilling
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 7 Comments »
Tuesday, March 1st, 2022
DEVILMAN (2004) is a live action fantasy-horror-action film based on the manga and anime of the same title created by Go Nagai – that guy who had the cameo as a food critic in THE TOXIC AVENGER PART II. Like THE TOXIC AVENGER PART II, DEVILMAN begins with friendly narration by its hero, in this case Akira Fudo (Hisato Izaki, CROWS ZERO), calmly telling us about his life and adventures.
The story is about a lifelong friendship between clutzy Akira and his more athletic friend Ryo Asuka (Yusuke Izaki, also CROWS ZERO). We see in the opening flashback that as a little kid Ryo “was a bit strange,” meaning he had grey hair, was obsessed with monsters and said he was one of them. Now Akira is known for his awkward smile and Ryo is known for his creepy lack of ever smiling at all. When some jerks at school beat up Akira a guy with long brightly colored braids (Masaki Nishina) warns them that one time he bullied Akira and Ryo came into his class and cut off two of his fingers with hedge clippers. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Asuka Shibuya, Ayana Sakai, Bob Sapp, Go Nagai, Hirotaro Honda, Hisato Izaki, J-Pop, manga, Masakatsu Funaki, Masaki Nishina, Yusuke Izaki
Posted in Comic strips/Super heroes, Fantasy/Swords, Horror, Reviews | 3 Comments »
Monday, February 21st, 2022
“He needs special care, he doesn’t do well outside, you understand.”
TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (2022) – not to be confused with THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE (1974) or THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (2003) – is the new TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE movie released on (but not made by) Netflix. Like THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2 (1986), LEATHERFACE: THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE III (1990), TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: THE NEXT GENERATION (1995) and TEXAS CHAINSAW 3D (2013) it’s a direct sequel to Tobe Hooper’s 1974 masterpiece, seeming to ignore all the other installments.
As in the original film, we have a group of young people driving from Austin to a remote Texas town where they don’t fit in. But instead of a pretty casual day trip it’s for a business venture: chefs Dante (Jacob Latimore, SLEIGHT, DETROIT) and Melody (Sarah Yarkin, HAPPY DEATH DAY 2U) purchased a small ghost town at a bank auction, with plans to open a restaurant and turn the town into some kind of hipster enclave. Along for the ride are Melody’s younger sister Lila (Elsie Fisher, EIGHTH GRADE) and Dante’s girlfriend Ruth (Nell Hudson). (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alice Krige, Colin Stetson, David Blue Garcia, Elsie FisherNell Hudson, Fede Alvarez, Jacob Latimore, Kim Henkel, Mark Burnham, Moe Dunford, Olwen Fouere, Rodo Sayagues, Sarah Yarkin, slashers, William Hope
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 107 Comments »
Monday, February 14th, 2022
To me, I suspect, the phrase “Resident Evil” will always mean the Milla Jovovich sci-fi-action-horror series that spanned six movies and fourteen years, kicking off at the start of the 21st century zombie movie revival, swerving into mimicry of MAD MAX and THE MATRIX, and ending somewhat disappointingly, but also somewhat admirably, with yet another look and feel. It’s a unique pop culture creation, a pleasingly lowbrow mix of styles, sampling a wide range of gimmicks and trends (zombies, nu metal, wire fu, 3-D, speed-ramping) and teaching me to really like Paul W.S. Anderson after all. But in 2016 they called it quits and moved on to MONSTER HUNTER.
I personally wasn’t looking for a reboot (in the original sense of the word – actually starting over fresh) as a straight horror movie. But it makes sense, since, from what I understand, that’s what the video games that inspired the movies were like. (In fact, George Romero directed a commercial for the video game and was attached to a movie version well before Anderson.) And I’m happy to report that in contrast to the first RESIDENT EVIL (one of the only entries in the series I didn’t much enjoy) this new one called RESIDENT EVIL: WELCOME TO RACCOON CITY is actually a pretty good little horror movie. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Avan Jogia, Donal Logue, Hannah John-Kamen, Johannes Roberts, Josh Cruddas, Kaya Scodelario, Lily Gail, Mark Korven, Neal McDonough, Robbie Amell, Tom Hopper
Posted in Horror, Reviews, Videogame | 31 Comments »
Thursday, February 3rd, 2022
So, OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL (2013) is Sam Raimi’s most recent feature film until DOCTOR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS comes out in a few months. It’s like he accidentally took one too many drops of the potion and woke up in a whole new world.
But not really. In the interim, as always, he’s been producing movies for other people, including Fede Alvarez’s EVIL DEAD remake (also 2013) and DON’T BREATHE (2016). And of course he’s developed movies to direct that just haven’t gotten off the ground for one reason or another. There have been announcements of him directing movies based on the video game The Last of Us, the books Love May Fail, The Blade Itself, The Next 100 Years and The Kingkiller Chronicle: The Name of the Wind, plus a remake of A PROPHET. All of these seem to have fallen away, as such things often do.
Throughout his career as a director he’s also been prolific as an executive producer of TV shows including M.A.N.T.I.S., Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, American Gothic, Spy Game, Young Hercules, Jack of All Trades, Cleopatra 2525, Xena: Warrior Princess, Legend of the Seeker and Spartacus. But in 2014, about a month after OZ came out, he finally directed his first TV show. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Anne Gee Byrd, Bill Smitrovich, Bob Murawski, Bojana Novakovic, Bruce Campbell, Chasty Ballesteros, Dana DeLorenzo, Dave Garbett, Denis O'Hare, Greg Kinnear, Ian Colletti, Ivan Raimi, Jill Marie Jones, John Ortiz, Joseph LoDuca, Lucy Lawless, Mike Edward, Miranda Otto, Necar Zadegan, Omar Dorsey, Peter Stormare, Rachel Brosnahan, Ray Santiago, Sam Raimi, Sian Davis, Tara Summers, Tom Spezialy, Travis Fimmel, TV shows
Posted in Comedy/Laffs, Horror, Reviews | 23 Comments »
