Archive for the ‘Horror’ Category
Wednesday, October 10th, 2012
“Either this guy is nuttier than a Snickers, or there is some real heavy shit goin down.”
I’ve had this idea for years that one Halloween I should try to honor my two most covered genres by trying to review a bunch of action/horror crossovers. I knew Chuck Norris had done one, so HELLBOUND was at the top of my list. Unfortunately if this is any indication this is not gonna be one of my more worthwhile expeditions.
Our story begins in 1186 AD when Richard the Lionheart (David Robb, who in my opinion was cast in Downton Abbey based entirely on having this one his resume) battles an evil sorcerer called Prosatanos (Christopher Neame, LUST FOR A VAMPIRE, SUBURBAN COMMANDO) and locks him in a tomb using magic daggers. Then it continues in 1951 when some bandits who might’ve been professional acquaintances of Indiana Jones discover the tomb and think it would be a good idea to steal the magic daggers, releasing a force of pure evil that will, you know, cause trouble in 40-some years after he gets all the broken pieces of his shattered Magic Scepter Thing of Evil. Now he wants to conquer the world and presumably plunge it into that “1,000 Years of Darkness” Chuck Norris’s wife warned about in their anti-Obama video.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: action-horror, Chuck Norris
Posted in Action, Horror, Reviews | 28 Comments »
Sunday, October 7th, 2012
I meant to see this when it was in theaters in 1988, didn’t get around to it until now. It’s okay. Not worth that long of a wait, but luckily I did other stuff in between.
Treat Williams (THE SUBSTITUTE 2-4) and Joe Piscopo (Saturday Night Live cast, 1980-1984) play two 1980s Movie Cops. Treat is supposed to be the straight laced one, so he wears a suit. Piscopo is the wildman who wears a leather jacket and hits on every woman who appears on camera, because that’s always funny (see also: Jay Leno in COLLISION COURSE). This was after SNL when he got really into bodybuilding, so he also shows off his muscles alot. He’s kind of a cross between a wisecracking Bruce Willis type of character and a crazy Mel Gibson one.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: action-horror, Darren McGavin, Joe Piscopo, Keye Luke, Mark Goldblatt, Professor Toru Tanaka, Robert Yeoman, Steve Johnson, Treat Williams, Vincent Price
Posted in Action, Horror, Reviews | 50 Comments »
Friday, October 5th, 2012
In a quest for odd action-horror combos I came across this comic booky French movie that kind of seems like their version of a Milla Jovovich vehicle. Although it came out in 2002 it’s not that slick digital type of fake-looking, like ULTRAVIOLET or a RESIDENT EVIL or something. It’s more of a retro-MORTAL KOMBAT type of look with lots of badly composited red cloudy skies, lightning strikes, green fire, etc. But it could use some aggressive KOMBATtty techno music or guitar-and-drums scoring instead of the shitty keyboard-pretends-to-be-orchestra approach.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: drag queens, French horror, Julien Magnat, Laurent Spielvogel, Olivia Bonamy
Posted in Action, Horror, Reviews | 17 Comments »
Wednesday, October 3rd, 2012
For my inaugural horror picture of the 2012 Halloween season I chose ALL THE BOYS LOVE MANDY LANE, an internet-acclaimed indie from 2006 that still hasn’t been released in the U.S. yet because it was bought by the Weinsteins, who proceeded to pull a Weinstein on it. But I rented the UK blu-ray. Rookie director Jonathan Levine went on to direct the also-pretty-good non-horror indie movie THE WACKNESS and last year’s Joseph Gordon Levitt/Seth Rogen/cancer dramedy 50/50. The titleistical Mandy Lane is Amber Heard, who has since played the hot girl in NEVER BACK DOWN, PINEAPPLE EXPRESS, ZOMBIELAND, THE STEPFATHER and DRIVE ANGRY.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Amber Heard, Jonathan Levine, slashers
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 42 Comments »
Tuesday, September 18th, 2012
a.k.a. SAINT ANGE
When I watched THE TALL MAN recently I thought it was writer/director Pascal Laugier’s first English language picture. Turns out his one feature before MARTYRS was also in English. Coincidentally this was produced by Christophe Gans, whose CRYING FREEMAN I reviewed recently too. Laugier was apparently Gans’s assistant, and director of the BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF making-of documentaries. (I wonder what kind of crazy unpredictable plot turns those had?) I guess he also appears in the movie itself, playing the assistant to Machemort, whoever that is. I wonder if he’s friends with Mark Dacascos? (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Christophe Gans, French horror, ghosts, Pascal Laugier, Virginie Ledoyen
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 11 Comments »
Tuesday, August 21st, 2012
Remember the excitement we had when we came across MARTYRS, written and directed by Pascal Laugier? A genuinely unpredictable, unformulaic horror movie. One that was brutal and unpleasant enough that I was hesitant about recommending it to people, but great enough that it’s become pretty much universally respected as the must-see horror movie of recent years. Probly of the decade. The pinnacle of modern euro-horror, the most respectable extreme-horror.
When there’s somebody who made something that unusual, that pure, obviously Hollywood knows what to do: string ‘im up. Bring him to the U.S., make him speak English, put him on a HELLRAISER remake. Waste his time in idiotic meetings, showing him that he’s not allowed to do whatever he wants. He must compromise. Show him who’s boss.
So he quit HELLRAISER. But he still made an English language movie starring Jessica Biel. I heard a long time ago that it wasn’t that good, I forget if it was at a film festival or somebody saw a test screening or what. But I believed it. It sounded about right. He was making HARD BOILED, we don’t want to see his BROKEN ARROW.
But the reports were wrong! This is more like his FACE/OFF. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Jessica Biel, Jodelle Ferland, Pascal Laugier, William B. Davis
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 46 Comments »
Friday, July 20th, 2012
GREMLINS is a weird only-in-the-’80s mix. Like POLTERGEIST it’s a Spielberg production of a PG-rated horror movie directed by a legit horror director, Joe Dante. I mean, we can’t pretend THE HOWLING is on the level of THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE, but I think it’s a minor classic at least, genuinely creepy horror only overshadowed by that other even better werewolf movie that came out the same year.
But the other important factor at play here is that while Dante came up under Roger Corman he’s more of a goofball and cartoon nerd than a horror master. So his monsters are vicious bastards but also funny. Like the martians in MARS ATTACKS! they seem to live more to fuck with us than to kill us. And they plan to do both.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Chris Columbus, Christmas, Christmas horror, Corey Feldman, Dick Miller, horror comedies, Howie Mandel, Joe Dante, Judge Reinhold, Keye Luke, li'l bastards, Michael Winslow, Peter Cullen, Phoebe Cates, puppets, Zach Galligan
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 106 Comments »
Thursday, June 28th, 2012
From the time I heard about the book Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter until the second before I saw the trailer for the movie version, I had no interest in the concept. Yeah, I get it – history and horror cliches moosh-up. Wocka wocka wocka. But one second later I saw that trailer and I realized that I hadn’t gotten it at all. As far as you could tell from the trailer, this movie was gonna be treated dead serious. A historical drama that for some reason is also a horror action movie. It looked amazing.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Abraham Lincoln, Alan Tudyk, Anthony Mackie, Benjamin Walker, Civil War, Dominic Cooper, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Rufus Sewell, Seth Grahame-Smith, Tim Burton, Timur Bekmambatov, vampires
Posted in Action, Horror, Reviews | 66 Comments »
Wednesday, June 6th, 2012
POLTERGEIST III is not a very good movie, but I will go out on a limb and say that it’s a decent try, considering the circumstances. They only have Heather O’Rourke and Zelda Rubinstein returning, not the rest of the family. But at least they found a way to mix it up in location and filmatic style.
The director is Gary Sherman (VICE SQUAD). He co-wrote it with Brian Taggert (VISITING HOURS). IMDb also says that Steve Feke (WHEN A STRANGER CALLS, MAC & ME) worked on it uncredited. In this installment Carol Anne has gone to live with her mom’s sister (Nancy Allen), who is newly married to Tom Skerritt, who also has a pouty teenage daughter (Lara Flynn Boyle). They all live in a fancy new skyscraper in Chicago, which Skerritt is the bigshot manager of.
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Tags: Brian Taggert, Gary Sherman, ghosts, Lara Flynn Boyle, Nancy Allen, Steve Feke, Tom Skerritt, Zelda Rubinstein
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 47 Comments »
Tuesday, June 5th, 2012
Well, POLTERGEIST was a movie that people loved, so the best thing to do is to get the surviving cast members back together four years later (the actress who played the older daughter had been murdered), but not Spielberg or Hooper. The director this time is credited as Brian Gibson (WHAT’S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT) but I bet Tobe Hooper secretly was uncredited director to make up for not getting full control last time. You can’t disprove it so go ahead and add it into wikipedia if you want.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Brian Gibson, Craig T. Nelson, ghosts, H.R. Giger, Zelda Rubinstein
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 20 Comments »
