Archive for the ‘Horror’ Category
Tuesday, October 30th, 2012
PLEDGE NIGHT, that could be a good slasher movie, right? It’s got “Night” in the title, that’s scary. Implies a horrific massacre that occurred on one specific date in history. And after dark. The “Pledge” part means it takes place at a college, so it’s the young people whose blood usually fuels the slashers, but not too young. Kind of adults, in a way. I don’t know.
This was the first one by director Paul Ziller. Alot of the guys who directed these types of slashers have a handful of other IMDb credits at most. This guy went on to do BLOODFIST IV, BACK IN ACTION, SHOOTFIGHTER II among other action and thriller type business. In the 2000s he’s become more of a SyFy type with SNAKEHEAD TERROR, SWARMED, BEYOND LOCH NESS, YETI: CURSE OF THE SNOW DEMON, STONEHENGE APOCALYPSE… He’s still at it, having recently done a TV remake of THE PHILADELPHIA EXPERIMENT. The script is by Joyce Snider, whose other four IMDb credits are all pornos: PUBLIC AFFAIRS and RAW TALENT I-III. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Anthrax, fraternities, Paul Ziller, Slasher Search, slashers, Will Kempe
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 11 Comments »
Tuesday, October 30th, 2012
Here’s another one that doesn’t really fit the slasher definition I was looking for, but it’s such a better version of kind of the same premise as HIDE AND GO SHRIEK that I welcome it. This one is Australian, the directical debut of Stephen Hopkins, whose second and third films were A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 5: THE DREAM CHILD and PREDATOR 2.
A group of Australian teens – handsome guy with convertible, girlfriend, new wave nerd, girl named Ziggy he has a crush on – plan to hang out after school. But first they have a conflict with Officer Murphy (Steven Grives), a local cop who has it out for the kid with the car. He hates him so much he shifts his car into neutral and rolls it into a no parking zone just to give him a ticket.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Australian cinema, Slasher Search, Stephen Hopkins
Posted in Action, Horror, Reviews | 15 Comments »
Monday, October 29th, 2012
“I hate all this scary stuff you guys, come on!”
This one’s from ’88 and the premise is that some kids sneak into the furniture store owned by one of their dads to have a sex party or something. So it’s like CHOPPING MALL minus the robots. As great as robots obviously are I think that could still work, but unfortunately this movie is doing nothin to support the theory.
It starts out really strange, though. There’s a dude wearing a suit and a fedora, putting on makeup, thinks he’s Joel Grey or somebody. He goes out to a weirdly stylized street, picks up a hooker, fucks her up against a brick wall, stabs her. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: arguably homophobic, Slasher Search, slashers
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 16 Comments »
Sunday, October 28th, 2012
“Listen to me, I am not losing my daughter to a god damn 900 year old goat head!”
I always wanted to see this movie because I thought it was funny that they thought it was worth making a rip-off of CHILD’S PLAY but the killer doll is a girl. As if the very femaleness of the killer doll would change everything, because of the daily challenges a woman faces that are different from a man, or whatever.
Well, I really didn’t need to see this. I don’t necessarily feel like I’ve gained anything.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Denise Crosby, killer dolls, Lupe Ontiveros, Maria Lease, Rip Torn, Sam Bottoms
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 7 Comments »
Saturday, October 27th, 2012
THE POOL is from 2001 and is one of these slick studio style slasher movies that came out because of SCREAM. I guess Australia got CUT and Europe got THE POOL. (I’m giving it to the whole continent because it’s got British stars, takes place in Prague, and is a German production). It’s another whodunit slasher, with the unknown killer in a skeleton mask and all black clothes stalking a group of rich kids who’ve broken into some rich person’s extravagant swimming facility for an after-hours graduation party.
The opening is definitely modeled after the Drew Barrymore section of SCREAM, but instead of a teenager home alone it’s a rich lady preparing for a dinner party. And she’s more with-it than Drew: she goes right to the shotgun, and knows how to use it. But not well enough, obviously.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Isla Fisher, James McAvoy, Scream rip-offs, Slasher Search, slashers
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 12 Comments »
Saturday, October 20th, 2012
You know, I got buddies who are really into the shot-on-video horror movies of the ’80s. Some of them, like SLEDGE HAMMER for example, have been getting loving re-releases lately (with limited edition VHS version, even). Personally, at least where I am in my journey as a man and spiritual being at this point, I draw the line at shot on video. If I rent one on accident I turn it off immediately, wrap it in 3 plastic bags and bring it back. I watch a z-grade movie like BLOOD MASSACRE shot on actual film and I think if these motherfuckers could get it together to achieve that minimum level of professionalism then there’s no excuse. Yeah, money, but maybe that’s a helpful type of elitism, a firewall put in place to protect us.
But I knew VIDEO VIOLENCE had a video store prominently featured, and I thought Fangoria did a nice retrospective on it a few months ago, and also I forgot it was shot on video until I put it in. And I decided to give it a chance.
(It turns out the Fangoria article I was thinking of was THE VIDEO DEAD, an early DTV zombie movie.)
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: DTV, shot on video, Video Store Day
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 65 Comments »
Saturday, October 20th, 2012
Saturday is Video Store Day, the holiday where if children are good and put a dead fish in the slot of a Redbox then in the morning they find rare VHS and import Blu-Rays under their pillows. And we adults visit our local independent video stores or write cranky essays.
I know most of you live in a futuristic world of satellites and lasers and vending machines in the 7-11 parking lot, but as you know if you read that column from last year the remaining video stores are very important to my lifestyle and the type of movies I review here. It seems like soon we old timers will not be enough to support this industry and we’ll be forced to lick the boot of the corporate monopoly, or to start reading more books, until they stop making those too. But until that day I want to honor and support what I still feel is a superior way to find, share and learn about movies. So hooray Video Store Day. If you still have a video store in your area and haven’t been there in a while, maybe stop by.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: cannibals, Kim Carnes, Video Store Day
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 25 Comments »
Friday, October 19th, 2012
All I knew was RAW MEAT was some kind of a cannibal-in-the-subway movie from Gary Sherman, director of VICE SQUAD and POLTERGEIST III. I heard it was good, meant to see it for a long time, finally did.
During the opening credits – an artful, colorful montage of an upper class gentleman walking through strip club neon, set to some crazy jazz – I learned that it’s from 1972. I expected later. This is pre-TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE. I don’t know about this. Is this modern enough to be a good cannibal movie?
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: cannibals, Christopher Lee, Donald Pleasence, Gary Sherman
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 10 Comments »
Thursday, October 18th, 2012
I actually rented FADE TO BLACK as part of Slasher Search, knowing it wasn’t really gonna fit the FRIDAY THE 13TH slasher formula but thinking it might still count. There is a killer in it but he mostly shoots people and really doesn’t do anything that could be considered a slash at all so I’m gonna leave the logo off here.
This is kind of a horror movie but also a pretty detailed and sympathetic portrait of its weirdo killer Eric Binford (Dennis Christopher, CHARIOTS OF FIRE). He’s an awkward, movie obsessed nerd, old enough to be on his own but living with the disabled lady (Eve Brent) who raised him (and yells at him because she blames him for the accident that paralyzed her, even though he was 4 at the time).
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Dennis Christopher, Mickey Rourke, Peter Horton
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 10 Comments »
Wednesday, October 17th, 2012
THE MUTILATOR is a pretty good one about a guy mutilating other guys and their girlfriends. That is why he is called the mutilator, I believe. Well, nobody calls him the mutilator in the movie but out here in the real world we call him the mutilator on account of that is the name of the movie. It’s hard to explain but I think some of you get it. The Mutilator.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Slasher Search, slashers
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 31 Comments »
