Archive for the ‘Horror’ Category
Tuesday, October 10th, 2006
Boys, boys, boys–
These last couple weeks have been tough on my mental facilities. I reviewed that great new “ULTIMATE” edition of the original TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE, I also revisited parts 3 and 4 in that original series, then on Thursday I reviewed the new prequel to the remake. So by that point I’d studied and written about pretty much every angle to the whole Texas Chainsaw deal. You’d think I’d be done with it by now, but there is one final chapter: the one spinoff of the original movie that achieves its own level of True Greatness. I am talking about Tobe Hooper’s 1986 sequel, THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2. It’s been available on DVD for a couple years in a bare bones edition (get it, that is a pun because of all the skeletons they have) but Tuesday it comes out in a much deserved special edition with new commentaries, featurettes and deleted scenes. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bill Moseley, Dennis Hopper, L.M. Kit Carson, Lou Perryman, slashers, Tobe Hooper
Posted in AICN, Comedy/Laffs, Horror, Reviews | 13 Comments »
Friday, October 6th, 2006
SPOILER ALERT !!
Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here.
Honestly, I didn’t even have the energy to write this one up. I am depressed by how much I disagree with Harry and anyone else who gave this a pass. This is what we’re settling for now in horror? I think it’s a huge mistake to demystify something as potent as Leatherface, and I think this is every bit as rotten and bankrupt as Nispel’s remake a few years ago.
But why take my word for it? Here’s Vern, who I trust to explain it for you:
My friends,
Against all odds, this is actually alot better than anyone could’ve imagined. Admittedly, a prequel seems like a bad idea, and the director has only done one movie (that even he says is bad), and he told the Fangoria horror magazine he never even saw any TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE movies before he signed on. But somehow this movie is good ol’ horrory fun!
That’s how my review would start if I was a lying scumbag. But I tell it like it is, so I gotta tell you, if you hated the remake like I did you should skip this one. It’s the same old shit. The best compliment I can muster is “It has a couple funny lines.” Or how about, “I haven’t decided if it’s as bad as the remake or not.” That would make a good quote on the poster I think. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Jonathan Liebesman, Jordana Brewster, Michael Bay, Platinum Dunes, prequels, R. Lee Ermey
Posted in AICN, Horror, Reviews, Thriller | 11 Comments »
Thursday, October 5th, 2006
TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: THE NEXT GENERATION
Well in a serious bid to not hate the upcoming TEXAS CHAIN SAW remake prequel, I decided to mentally condition myself by rewatching the two bad sequels, parts 3-4. But I don’t know, maybe I’m getting soft in my old age, maybe the remake lowered the bar, maybe it’s some kind of Stockholm Syndrome deal, but this week I found out I really don’t hate these two movies like I used to. They’re not good sequels, no, but I was able to appreciate them a little more after all these years. The little fuckers are starting to grow on me.
I also realized the secret behind the failure of the sequels. Every one of them is basically a loose remake, but without all the elements that were in place to make the first one work. You can’t catch lightning in a bottle 4 times unless you’re really good with a bottle, and not even Tobe Hooper is that good with a bottle anymore. The sequels are all closer to the original than the actual remake is. They change the reason why the victims are in town, they have a different lineup for the family (and a different person playing Leatherface), and they add some new twists here and there. But they’re all basically some people come to town, get stuck at the house, they’re tormented in crazy ways, there’s the dinner scene, they escape, they battle, they get away. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Kim Henkel, Matthew McConaughey, Renee Zelweger, slashers
Posted in Comedy/Laffs, Horror, Reviews | 7 Comments »
Tuesday, October 3rd, 2006
As you’ve probaly figured out by now, I love THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE. Hell, I’d go so far as to call it the DIE HARD of horror. The Mohammed Ali of horror. The Bruce Lee of horror. I also love part 2, not as fond of part three, hated part 4, fucking DESPISED the remake.
This week they got the prequel to the remake coming out. I’m sure I’ll probaly hate it, but who knows. In some ways it doesn’t sound as bad as the remake, and since it’s not a remake you can hold it to the lower standards of a sequel. And lucky for it, there have been two not so hot sequels already to lower the bar. So I came up with a plan. First, I devised a method by which I will see the prequel without Michael Bay getting any of my money. Then I rented parts 3 and 4 so I can have them fresh on my mind while watching the prequel. That way I will have the maximum possible open-mindedness when I see the new one and might be able to appreciate it. The only problem is I watched Part 3 here and it’s not as bad as I remembered. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Duane Whitaker, Jeff Burr, Ken Foree, slashers, Tom Everett, Viggo Mortensen, William Butler
Posted in Comedy/Laffs, Horror, Reviews, Thriller | 11 Comments »
Monday, September 25th, 2006
Judging by this title, we are dealing with a story about 1 (one) Alien facing off against 1 (one) Predator. Maybe the Alien dripped acid blood on the Predator’s invisibility machine, so they start getting up in each other’s face or something. It is hard to predict what would cause them to fight, but it is easy to predict the outcome. The Alien wins because the Alien is hands down cooler than the Predator. Sorry Predators, just tellin it like it is. Of course, the title could also mean the actual movie ALIEN is facing off against the movie PREDATOR. In that case ALIEN will be defeating PREDATOR for tension, atmosphere, originality, and artistic legitimacy, while being roundly defeated in the oneliner and gun size departments.
But the title ALIEN VS. PREDATOR is misleading. It is actually MODERN DAY HUMANS + SOME CGI ALIENS AND TEENAGE PREDATORS. It turns out that the ancient Predators built a pyramid in what is now Antarctica and it’s still there under the ice. Once every 100 years exactly, a Predator ship comes down, sets loose some Alien eggs and has their Predator boys fight the Aliens as a rite of passage. Maybe they are from the south of Predator planet and this is their equivalent of deer hunting. Or Texas football. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: AvP, Lance Henriksen, Paul W.S. Anderson, Predator series
Posted in Action, Horror, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 4 Comments »
Monday, September 25th, 2006
You probaly know director Bob Clark as the guy who did PORKY’S and A CHRISTMAS STORY. More recently he did the two BABY GENIUSES movies and something called KARATE DOG which, judging by the cover, is not a metaphorical title. But back in the day he was a pretty good director of horror movies. One of the ones he did was DEATHDREAM, a really eerie movie about a guy coming back undead from Vietnam and everybody is sort of in denial that he’s different. I liked that one a hell of alot better than HOMECOMING, Joe Dante’s sort of similar anti-war zombie thing from the Masters of Horror show.
But right after DEATHDREAM Clark did his most famous horror movie, BLACK CHRISTMAS, and it’s a pretty good one. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bob Clark, Christmas, Christmas horror, John Saxon, Keir Dullea, Margot Kidder, Olivia Hussey, slashers
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 8 Comments »
Monday, September 25th, 2006
Ahoy, squirts! Quint here to intro Vern and his look at a DVD I’m certainly picking up for this Halloween season: the newly spiffed up TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE SE. Vern goes through all the reasons this is better than the previous editions and some area where it isn’t, then wraps up the whole shebang with a final verdit. Is it worthy or unworthy? See for yourself!!!
Well friends, we all agree that THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE is one of the greatest films in the history of American independent cinema, etc. etc.
[imagine 30,000 words here about why I love this movie. And believe me, I could do it.]
[Okay, maybe I’d have to pad it out by going off on a tangent about how underrated part 2 is, and why I hate the remake, and I’d have to spell “alot” as two words, but I could still make it to 30,000.] (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: slashers, Tobe Hooper
Posted in AICN, Horror, Reviews, Thriller | 27 Comments »
Friday, September 22nd, 2006
Hi, everyone. “Moriarty” here with some Rumblings From The Lab…
Wait… Brett Leonard made a bad film? THAT’S UN-POSSIBLE!!
Dear Harry-Thing,
I happened to see this movie MAN-THING and I figured it was my duty to notify you boys. The cover says it’s Marvel Comics and “from the producer of SPIDER-MAN, DAREDEVIL, X-MEN and BLADE.” Funny, no mention of ELEKTRA or DAREDEVIL. You remember that one, where Ben Affleck was the blind sadomasochistic biker version of Spiderman, and Colin Farrell kept trying to kill him by flicking peanuts and paperclips and shit at him? I was thinking maybe I dreamed that movie but my sources assure me that it was an actual, theatrically released movie starring popular Hollywood actors. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Brett Leonard, Marvel Comics
Posted in Action, AICN, Comic strips/Super heroes, Horror, Monster, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 1 Comment »
Thursday, September 21st, 2006
The original TOOLBOX MURDERS was made because of TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE. You can’t really say it’s a ripoff, because the movies don’t have much in common. But on the DVD, the producer explains that he read in Variety or somewhere about the amount of money TEXAS CHAIN SAW had made so he rented a print of it and hired a screenwriter to watch the movie and make something like that.
So it’s weird that 24 years later poor Tobe Hooper, director of TEXAS CHAIN SAW, wound up doing a remake of TOOLBOX MURDERS. But just like before, his movie doesn’t have much connection with the movie that inspired it. There’s a guy in a ski mask killing people with tools in an apartment building, but everything else is different. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Angela Bettis, DTV, Juliet Landau, Rance Howard, remakes, Tobe Hooper
Posted in Horror, Mystery, Reviews | 4 Comments »
Friday, September 8th, 2006
SPOILER ALERT !!
Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. Our boy Vern is at it again, this time with Renny Harlin’s cheesefest, THE COVENANT! This is gonna be fun!!!
Okay, I know you boys already ran a negative review of Renny Harlin’s THE COVENANT earlier today, so me writing the second review of a movie like this is as pointless as, you know, writing the first one. But since I actually sat through the thing I feel I have earned the right to say my piece. Besides, it’s not about the movie. It’s about the journey.
Obviously I can’t agree with the earlier reviewer Gandhiboy about Harlin’s DIE HARD 2 being “as good as the original,” but it is a damn good sequel to a perfect movie that you would think nobody could make a decent sequel to. I believe that the pressure of that feat damaged Renny’s mind forever, turning him into the other Renny Harlin who we love today for different reasons. After DEEP BLUE SEA and to a lesser extent MINDHUNTERS I expect some good old fashioned retarded nonsense from the crazy old Finn. He makes dumb movies smarter than most people. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Renny Harlin, witches
Posted in AICN, Horror, Reviews | 9 Comments »
