After discovering THE LOST a couple weeks back I wanted to see what else writer/director Chris Sivertson had done. The answer was I KNOW WHO KILLED ME and this underground fighting movie that coincidentally has just come to disc. It’s like the guy predicted when I would catch up with him and said “You know what, I want to do something special for ol’ Vern. Give him a movie in a genre he enjoys.” (read the rest of this shit…)
Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category
Brawler
Friday, November 9th, 2012Cloud Atlas
Wednesday, November 7th, 2012
What if there were like a book of maps, only it was made out of the sky? That would be weird.
Well, anyway. At a climactic point in CLOUD ATLAS a character talks righteously about freedom, and about refusing to accept boundaries. And that’s what Lana and Andy Wachowski (who directed this along with Tom Tykwer) have done with their lives, their careers and this movie in particular. If you haven’t heard what CLOUD ATLAS is, it’s a nearly 3-hour epic based on a supposedly unadaptable book. It takes place in a bunch of different time periods ranging from the age of slavery to a dystopian future to even a post-apocalyptic future after that. But not in order – it jumps around from story to story, like a bunch of unrelated movies edited together as a weird joke on Youtube.
(read the rest of this shit…)
The Man With the Iron Fists
Saturday, November 3rd, 2012
THE MAN WITH THE IRON FISTS is the new kung fu movie directed, co-written and starring RZA, leader of the Wu-Tang Clan. The rap group, not the clan, although he has actually been a guest at the Shaolin Temple and trained under a 34th generation Shaolin monk, no bullshit. If you’re not a Shaolin monk and not into hip hop either you might still be familiar with RZA from his all time classic score to GHOST DOG: WAY OF THE SAMURAI or you might’ve seen him show up as an actor occasionally, like in AMERICAN GANGSTER or FUNNY PEOPLE.
Directing a kung fu movie, though, is something he’s been trying to do since at least the ’90s, when he started filming a super hero martial arts thing called BOBBY DIGITAL. (read the rest of this shit…)
Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning
Saturday, November 3rd, 2012
PREVIOUSLY, ON UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: In 2009 John Hyams, fine sports documentarian and son of the director of OUTLAND, knocked the world of DTV flat on its ass with a grim and shockingly great part 3 (or part 5 including the made for cable 2 and 3). It is one of its decade’s best American action movies and a classic example of a hungry artist taking a disrespected medium far beyond its perceived limitations. Also Dolph Lundgren makes a hell of an impression with a small appearance, the Alec-Baldwin-in-GLENGARRY-GLEN-ROSS-of-DTV.
And now, UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: DAY OF RECKONING.
(read the rest of this shit…)
StageFright
Wednesday, October 31st, 2012
STAGEFRIGHT (aka DELIRIA, or STAGEFRIGHT: AQUARIUS as the title screen says) is a very stylish slasher/giallo type deal from Michele Soavi, Dario Argento’s second unit director on TENEBRE and PHENOMENA who went on to be best known for directing CEMETERY MAN. This one is more obviously in the footsteps of his mentor than that one.
It begins in aggressive stylization, a big-haired model hanging out on a soundstage city street, suddenly strangled in an alley. But this is not real, these are all people working on some kind of avant garde musical or some shit like that. There’s an overbearing, pretentious director, a bunch of primadonna dancers and actors and choreographers, some stage tech types, etc. And of course somebody is unhappy with something so they all get locked onto the soundstage and murdered one by one. (read the rest of this shit…)
Dead in 3 Days (plus bonus mini-review: Lost Things)
Wednesday, October 31st, 2012
DEAD IN 3 DAYS is Austrian young people horror from 2006. The box art for the American release of it from Dimension Extreme makes a big deal about how a group of teens all get the same text message saying they’ll be dead in 3 days, so I thought maybe it was gonna be influenced by the Japanese phone related pictures such as THE RING and ONE MISSED CALL. Instead it’s a very solid whodunit slasher with alot of subtle distinctness in the ways it handles material that seems generic on the surface.
I don’t know if this is on purpose, but the basic themes are set up in a meta kind of way in the opening, because of the way it resembles the opening of A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET. The hands of an unseen man are building something sinister in a dark basement… but no, it turns out he’s not making a bladed glove or anything. He’s hanging himself.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Death Valley
Wednesday, October 31st, 2012
See, it’s a double meaning. Death Valley, like the place. That’s the location of this story. But also Death Valley. Like death, you know? I think you get it.
Slasher Search 2012 has been pretty productive in my opinion, but not in the usual area. I haven’t done good on the older slashers. I’m just looking for a pretty fun FRIDAY THE 13TH or HALLOWEEN ripoff with a few twists or odd idiosyncrasies, you know? I’m not asking for the world. But every time I find one there’s one less out there that I haven’t seen, so it’s harder every year. Anyway, this is the last of this year’s VHS rentals, might be my last shot.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Pledge Night
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…)
Dangerous Game
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…)
Hide and Go Shriek
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…)
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