Last year there was a well-reviewed Valentine’s Day slasher movie playing in theaters. Normally I’d be all over that shit, but I boycotted for political reasons. You see, the production company behind it, Spyglass Media Group, were the assholes who fired the star of SCREAMs 5 and 6 from SCREAM 7 for posting about the Gaza genocide. (And being against it.) I grew up on ‘80s horror sequels, so obviously I can roll with the loss of a main character and the derailing of a storyline, but doing it for that reason was too much. They not only fired her but smeared her as having written anti-semitic hate speech and “false references to genocide, ethnic cleansing, Holocaust distortion.” I’d say they’re fucking cowards for not having publicly apologized yet, now that it’s a couple years later and the genocide and ethnic cleansing continue, but I suspect they have no guilt about it whatsoever.
I think back to 2003, when the band then known as the Dixie Chicks got into trouble for saying they were against invading Iraq and embarrassed to be from the same state as George W. Bush. If there had been a SCREAM 4 in the works at that time and then one of the stars criticized the war and got fired for it, I’m positive SCREAM would’ve been dead to me then. So it’s dead to me now. I love my “horror franchise” completism bullshit but not enough, it turns out, to stomach something like this. That’s just my personal decision for myself, I’m not telling anyone else what to do.
For that Valentine’s Day movie though I decided it was okay to watch and review now because I didn’t pay money and it’s not vying for box office dollars. So here’s my right-on-time late review of HEART EYES, which is directed by Josh Ruben (WEREWOLVES WITHIN) and written by Phillip Murphy (HITMAN’S WIFE’S BODYGUARD), Michael Kennedy (IT’S A WONDERFUL KNIFE) and Christopher Landon (HAPPY DEATH DAY, FREAKY, DROP, was going to direct SCREAM 7 but left after the firing). It’s about an infamous murderer known as the “Heart Eyes Killer,” who kills couples on Valentine’s Day, and the idea is to combine a slasher movie with a romantic comedy. In my opinion they were partially but not fully successful with each side of that coupling. (read the rest of this shit…)
Slasher Search: A New Beginning: Stream Warriors: The Next Generation – Part I: Shudder
So, a few years ago I conceded that I have to change the rules if I’m gonna continue my Halloween tradition of searching for unknown slasher gems. I don’t think there’s much in the way of obscure vintage shit I haven’t come across, and if there is I’ll probly only find out about it when Vinegar Syndrome or somebody releases it on blu-ray (maybe even 4K).
But many of you seem to enjoy the ritual as much as I do, so I’m trying my best to do some variation on it, and the most realistic approach seems to be checking for newer slasher-ish movies on streaming services. When it comes to Tubi, the trick is digging through a million horror movies you never heard of trying to find the good ones. I plan to do some of that soon (probly after the holiday, sorry), but this month I’ve mostly been using the actual curated horror service, Shudder. So here’s an investigation of a trio I watched that are in the slasher tradition.
Hard to believe, but I’ve been watching these FAST & FURIOUS movies for more than 20 years now. The first two on video, the rest highly anticipated theatrical events. At first they were these goofy lowbrow trendsploitation movies I got a kick out of, but I had to defend their right to exist from the Ain’t It Cool talkbackers. With FAST FIVE they became a hugely popular action saga that even mainstream critics respected for a couple years. The series definitely peaked during that period, and I don’t expect them to ever get that perfect balance back, but they still have their own delightful brand of preposterous action excess mixed with macho grease monkey soap opera that brings me great joy, and there’s no other movie series past or present that offers anything quite like it. So they’re back to being this dumb thing I enjoy while my Twitter feed is full of posts much like the talkbacks from back in the aughts. Why do they still make these, who are these for, Vin Diesel has an ego. Same old shit as time marches on a quarter mile at a time.
FAST X (which we all seem to have agreed to pronounce the same way we pronounce JASON X) doesn’t have as much to live up to as F9 did two years ago. It’s not my return to theaters after Covid-19 vaccination, and it’s not the series’ best director Justin Lin finally returning to the fold. In fact, it’s his departure – somehow Diesel (allegedly) managed to be such a pain in the ass that Lin quit as director. They’d managed four full movies together, but only a week filming this one. (read the rest of this shit…)
During this year’s October viewing I wanted to revisit a few things that I consider lesser movies from directors I like, that I haven’t seen since they came out decades ago. You know – just to be sure.
I started with a forgotten later one from George A. Romero – his last non-living-dead-related movie, BRUISER. I was disappointed in it at the time, but that was 22 years ago, and I’d had high expectations for it since he hadn’t had a movie in 7 years. There was that gap between his Hollywood stint in the early ‘90s and his return in the new millennium, and it was in the middle of that period that I became obsessed with DAWN OF THE DEAD and KNIGHTRIDERS and everything. So it was a big event when he finally came back with this odd French-American co-production starring a dude from LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS. (read the rest of this shit…)
F9: THE FAST SAGA, a.k.a. FAST 9, actual onscreen title: FF: F9, is not the Platonic ideal of a FAST AND FURIOUS movie. That would be FURIOUS 6 or FAST FIVE. But if Plato is anything like me he would’ve appreciated this one for what it is. I don’t know how much of a grump he was.
(lots of spoilers here of course)
This is the first FAST movie since 2003’s 2 FAST 2 FURIOUS that’s not written by Chris Morgan, instead being credited to Daniel Casey (KIN) & director Justin Lin (HOLLYWOOD ADVENTURES) with a story by those two & Alfredo Botello (uncredited revisions on TOKYO DRIFT). They’ve come up with a patchwork that certainly shows the dangers of a movie series going on for twenty years with at least half that time spent trying to top itself in size and ridiculousness each time out. But for me it has a much better balance of preposterous action and sincere melodrama than, at the very least, HOBBS & SHAW and FATE OF THE FURIOUS. It has more and better spectacle than your average movie, but also requires that you like the characters and themes of the series to enjoy it. In fact, in between a car somehow Tarzan-swinging across cliffs on a rope and another one being (as you’ve surely heard) launched into space, you’re gonna spend a surprising amount of time in 1989 when Dominic Toretto’s dad (J.D. Pardo, THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN PART 2, SNITCH) was killed in a racing accident and Dom went to prison for beating another driver (Jim Parrack, FURY) with a wrench. (read the rest of this shit…)
Ladies and gentlemen, the title is FURIOUS 6. They’ve been advertising it as FAST & FURIOUS 6, and every time I see that I think “if the last one was FAST FIVE then why can’t this be FURIOUS SIX?” Well, the actual movie says FURIOUS 6. And this is not the first time that the THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS series has come through for me. We’re family.
Director Justin Lin returns for his fourth and final installment, and I hope they gave him a hell of a gold watch. When he came along there was this one really enjoyable POINT BREAK ripoff and one ridiculous sequel and he had to follow up without the original cast or characters. The series was left for dead. But he did a great job with TOKYO DRIFT, then reunited Vin Diesel and Paul Walker for FAST AND FURIOUS, then brought back almost the entire team and added The Rock for FAST FIVE. With FURIOUS SIX he takes everything he learned from those movies and supercharges the engine and adds spoilers and shit. Having the whole team (minus Don Omar and Tego Calderon, plus Michelle Rodriguez) together isn’t a novelty the second time around, so to make up for that he kicks the action sequences into ridiculous new extremes. Which is saying alot in a FAST AND FURIOUS – have you seen these movies? (read the rest of this shit…)
Wow, I never would’ve predicted this: THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS has aged well. Or maybe I just wasn’t ready for it back when I first saw it. Skimming over my intentionally pretentious and off-topic original review I can see that I saw it as an attempt to exploit a fad. This is supported by all the old dvd extras (now on blu-ray) which make a huge deal about it being based on a Vibe article about street racing, and how they went to watch races and ran from the cops and all the cars and extras in the car show scenes are real racers who responded to a web posting. They wanted us to know this “street racing” was a real thing happening somewhere at night, and director Rob Cohen and friends are on the front lines ready to show us what’s going down. (read the rest of this shit…)
First of all, let’s take a moment to pause and reflect on the miracle of the THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS series. It started in 2000, a studio b-movie, a dumb subculture exploiter with hot up-and-coming stars, quite good for a Rob Cohen movie and with a star-making performance by Mr. Vin Diesel, but undeniably corny. I don’t think anybody could predict that 11 years later it would be Universal’s most valued franchise/trademark/anti-intellectualproperty or that a part 5 would be bigger and better than the previous ones. Especially when you consider that Diesel ditched out on part 2 and Paul Walker bailed before part 3 and that even the naming of the movies poses a challenge. You don’t see I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER still coming out with new chapters but they keep doing FASTs and FURIOUSes even after running out of sensible combinations of those words. (read the rest of this shit…)
You take the “the”s out, the title becomes more aerodynamic. This unlikely THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS part 4 combines elements of the previous 3: the characters and tone of part 1, the video game plotting and drug kingpin bad guys of part 2, the director and improved visual style of part 3. Combining all the technologies they’ve developed into a new model.
Part 3 might still be my favorite, with its comprehensive visual tribute to everything that looks cool in Tokyo and its charismatic lead performance by Lucas Black (plus Sonny Chiba bit part, Incredible Hulk car and stupid cameo at the end). I was surprised how much I liked that one and even more surprised how many people I know who have no interest in the series liked it too. (read the rest of this shit…)
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…)
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Recent commentary and jibber-jabber
VERN on Queens of the Dead: “That’s interesting so-and-so, I don’t fully understand what causes you to reject it like that, but it sounds like my…” Feb 13, 22:50
Skani on Heart Eyes: “Second watch verdict is in — it’s still very good! Boys liked it a lot, too, across the board. My…” Feb 13, 17:54
Mr. Majestyk on Heart Eyes: “I was not expecting it to be dead serious with that premise. I just don’t think they got the comic…” Feb 13, 12:33
Bill Reed on Heart Eyes: “Maybe I’m a sucker for anything that has a lot of quickly-delivered dialogue, but I liked this a lot more…” Feb 13, 12:33
Skani on Heart Eyes: “Majestyk, I already had plans to watch this with my boys this evening (their first watch, my second), so, I…” Feb 13, 11:14
Dave Chappelle's Emergency Code Word on Butcher Boys: “Maybe Swift’s refried idea is what the fourth-rate Hollywood producer Barry Josephson had in mind when he told Jeffrey Epstein…” Feb 13, 09:37
so-and-so on Queens of the Dead: “i appreciate the outreach that a review like this represents but i think if a straight co-worker were to recommend…” Feb 13, 06:50
Mr. Majestyk on Heart Eyes: “Would like to chime in that I have also cut off the SCREAM franchise on moral grounds. It was not…” Feb 13, 04:54
Simon Underwood on Heart Eyes: “As someone who had their life changed by Scream (among other things, it was one of the key films that…” Feb 13, 01:13
so-and-so on Send Help: “sympathy is reserved for and expressed to other human beings; the characters in a fictional narrative by definition cannot garner…” Feb 12, 21:59
Skani on Heart Eyes: “My friends at Rotten Tomatoes call this “ A mixture of gory slasher and sweet rom-com that ingeniously nails both…” Feb 12, 20:17
Alex R on Dragged Across Concrete: “This review was what made me start reading the site. I believe somebody linked to it on Letterboxd. Two things…” Feb 12, 19:26
Curt on Queens of the Dead: “Yes, it was VEGAS IN SPACE, thank you! I looked it up online and recognized the artwork immediately. Worth a…” Feb 12, 18:40
Mr. Majestyk on Heart Eyes: “I kind of hated this one. As a SCREAM-esque glossy slasher it’s, shrug, fine, but christ, do I hate this…” Feb 12, 17:44
Mr. Majestyk on Queens of the Dead: “I haven’t seen it, but my guess is VEGAS IN SPACE.” Feb 12, 11:31
Last year there was a well-reviewed Valentine’s Day slasher movie playing in theaters. Normally I’d be all over that shit, but I boycotted for political reasons. You see, the production company behind it, Spyglass Media Group, were the assholes who fired the star of SCREAMs 5 and 6 from SCREAM 7 for posting about the Gaza genocide. (And being against it.) I grew up on ‘80s horror sequels, so obviously I can roll with the loss of a main character and the derailing of a storyline, but doing it for that reason was too much. They not only fired her but smeared her as having written anti-semitic hate speech and “false references to genocide, ethnic cleansing, Holocaust distortion.” I’d say they’re fucking cowards for not having publicly apologized yet, now that it’s a couple years later and the genocide and ethnic cleansing continue, but I suspect they have no guilt about it whatsoever.
Slasher Search: A New Beginning: Stream Warriors: The Next Generation – Part I: Shudder
But many of you seem to enjoy the ritual as much as I do, so I’m trying my best to do some variation on it, and the most realistic approach seems to be checking for newer slasher-ish movies on streaming services. When it comes to Tubi, the trick is digging through a million horror movies you never heard of trying to find the good ones. I plan to do some of that soon (probly after the holiday, sorry), but this month I’ve mostly been using the actual curated horror service, Shudder. So here’s an investigation of a trio I watched that are in the slasher tradition.
Hard to believe, but I’ve been watching these FAST & FURIOUS movies for more than 20 years now. The first two on video, the rest highly anticipated theatrical events. At first they were these goofy lowbrow trendsploitation movies I got a kick out of, but I had to defend their right to exist from the Ain’t It Cool talkbackers. With 
During this year’s October viewing I wanted to revisit a few things that I consider lesser movies from directors I like, that I haven’t seen since they came out decades ago. You know – just to be sure.
F9: THE FAST SAGA, a.k.a. FAST 9, actual onscreen title: FF: F9, is not the Platonic ideal of a FAST AND FURIOUS movie. That would be 
Ladies and gentlemen, the title is FURIOUS 6. They’ve been advertising it as FAST & FURIOUS 6, and every time I see that I think “if the last one was FAST FIVE then why can’t this be FURIOUS SIX?” Well, the actual movie says FURIOUS 6. And this is not the first time that the THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS series has come through for me. We’re family.
released June 22nd, 2001
First of all, let’s take a moment to pause and reflect on the miracle of the THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS series. It started in 2000, a studio b-movie, a dumb subculture exploiter with hot up-and-coming stars, quite good for a Rob Cohen movie and with a star-making performance by Mr. Vin Diesel, but undeniably corny. I don’t think anybody could predict that 11 years later it would be Universal’s most valued franchise/trademark/anti-intellectualproperty or that a part 5 would be bigger and better than the previous ones. Especially when you consider that Diesel ditched out on part 2 and Paul Walker bailed before part 3 and that even the naming of the movies poses a challenge. You don’t see I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER still coming out with new chapters but they keep doing FASTs and FURIOUSes even after running out of sensible combinations of those words.
You take the “the”s out, the title becomes more aerodynamic. This unlikely THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS part 4 combines elements of the previous 3: the characters and tone of part 1, the video game plotting and drug kingpin bad guys of part 2, the director and improved visual style of part 3. Combining all the technologies they’ve developed into a new model.
SPOILER ALERT !!
