As I promised before Halloween, I’ve continued scouring Tubi for potential Slasher Search material. It’s been a struggle so far. Most of the things I’ve clicked on turn out to be hard to get through and easy to give up on. For example I tried to watch one called HAUNTED TRAIL because it was directed by A RAGE IN HARLEM star Robin Givens and I thought that was interesting that she directed a horror movie, but I lost patience before anything happened. When I don’t have to pick out a finite number of tapes or discs and carry them home my remote finger is itchier.
So for now here’s one that I actually found on DVD, and it’s not available streaming, but it’s an obscurity from the aughts that seems very Tubi-appropriate to me. HACK! (2007) fits squarely and stupidly into the meta-slasher tradition even though it’s a full eleven years after SCREAM. The characters keep talking about horror movies, and the killer(s) is/are trying to make one. But please note the scene where a guy swears he saw a scary clown in the woods and they ask if he looked like Captain Spaulding, explaining that that’s a character from HOUSE OF 1,000 CORPSES and then explaining that that’s a Rob Zombie movie. It’s a reminder that this is, what – three horror cycles after SCREAM? But they don’t seem to have learned anything substantial from any of them. (read the rest of this shit…)
Now we come not to the end of this Ronny Yu series, or to its peak, but at least to a watershed moment. If you read this whole series, or at least the BRIDE OF CHUCKY review, you don’t need to ask the question “how the hell does the guy who made THE BRIDE WITH WHITE HAIR end up making FREDDY VS. JASON?”
But at the risk of reptitition, let’s run through it again real quick. For starters, Yu had been making horror movies for 20 years (THE TRAIL, THE OCCUPANT, MUMMY DEAREST, BLESS THIS HOUSE), so that part wasn’t out of the blue. Then in the ‘90s two things happened: the new wave of Hong Kong cinema became popular around the world, and many Hong Kong filmmakers began to worry about what would happen to artistic freedom once colonial rule ended in 1997. That combination of circumstances led filmmakers like John Woo, Ringo Lam and Tsui Hark, as well actors like Jackie Chan, Chow Yun Fat, Michelle Yeoh, Donnie Yen and Sammo Hung, to start finding opportunities in Hollywood. (read the rest of this shit…)
is when BLADE came out and changed both cinema and humanity forever. But I already wrote the definitive review of that so here I am reviewing DEAD MAN ON CAMPUS.
It turns out maybe the comedies that come out in August are not essential to a summer movie retrospective. That’s a lesson I’m learning. I actually saw DEAD MAN ON CAMPUS at the time, but I realize now that I was conflating my memory of it with IDLE HANDS. I knew it was a different movie, but I thought it was another supernatural teen horror comedy. It was about half an hour in before I realized oh shit, he’s not gonna turn into a zombie. This is that movie where they find out their college has an obscure rule that if your roommate commits suicide then they have to give you straight As (just go with it) so they try to find an unstable roommate and push him to the brink. The kind of movie that should just have a disclaimer and a 1-800 number running across the screen throughout like a watermark on a critic’s screener. (read the rest of this shit…)
Recently I realized I missed one of the early Isaac Florentine movies, a goofy John-Woo-inspired bank robber story starring Antonio Sabato Jr. (and Sr.), Shannon Lee, Amy Smart and Lochlyn Munro. So I reviewed it for my column on Daily Grindhouse, which is now called America’s Got Punching (formerly Journey to Battle Island).
I wonder if they considered Leslie Nielsen for THE BOONDOCK SAINTS?
FROM THE OUTLAW VAULTS: I never get to take Martin Luther King Day off at my job, but I’m gonna simulate taking a day off here on outlawvern.com by posting an old review of a Leslie Nielsen movie you never heard of. This is a review I came across on my hard drive that I wrote two years ago shortly after Nielsen’s death, but never quite finished or posted. It’s not a movie I’m gonna go back and rewatch in order to complete the review, but I didn’t want to waste all that typing, either. So here it is.
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Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t find myself renting some 2001 Leslie Nielsen movie I never heard of. But the poor guy died recently and I happened to notice this one was written by Billy Bob Thornton (with his partner Tom Epperson and some guy who was in SPIDERBABY), so I wanted to see what the deal was.
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Recent commentary and jibber-jabber
walkerp on Play Dirty: “@Acid Burn, you don’t have to read the Parker books in order, but there is a subtle chronology to them…” Oct 8, 03:07
pegsman on Play Dirty: “Guys, I have to go back and correct myself. Of course Brian Garfield did not write the screenplay for THE…” Oct 7, 21:50
Mr. Majestyk on Hell of a Summer / Clown in a Cornfield: “It’s bordering on hilariously bad but doesn’t quite get there. It does do one thing that the SCREAM franchise should…” Oct 7, 17:43
Skani on Hell of a Summer / Clown in a Cornfield: “I agree that the reviews were a little misleading. This is the type of movie that would typically get maybe…” Oct 7, 15:01
Birch on Hell of a Summer / Clown in a Cornfield: “I saw Clown in theaters as well but seem to have had a much more negative reaction than anyone else…” Oct 7, 10:28
The Winchester on Hell of a Summer / Clown in a Cornfield: ““Like… I’d say eight or more.” This cracked me up way more than it should have. Thank you! I saw…” Oct 7, 09:47
jojo on Play Dirty: “Completely anecdotally: Walking out of Reservoir Dogs, it occurred to me it was basically a movie I’d watch with my…” Oct 7, 03:27
CJ Holden on Play Dirty: “I don’t know much about Westlake’s output, except from popculture and the stuff that you guys keep telling. I do…” Oct 7, 02:42
Matthew B. on Play Dirty: “Oh, for those who aren’t aware, there’s another Westlake movie this year — Park Chan-wook’s NO OTHER CHOICE, from THE…” Oct 7, 01:00
Matthew B. on Play Dirty: “What I don’t get, if you’re adapting JIMMY THE KID and just want to make a comedy about a kidnapped…” Oct 7, 00:16
CJ Holden on Play Dirty: “Today I learned that there was a German Westlake adaptation in the 90s. JIMMY THE KID rang a bell. I…” Oct 6, 23:50
Matthew B. on Play Dirty: “CITY OF INDUSTRY is clearly Stark-influenced, and it’s a pretty good film besides. To agree that THE HOT ROCK is…” Oct 6, 23:21
pegsman on Play Dirty: “It’s that bad, huh? Well, i still think you’re wrong. But it’s not a hill I’m willing to die defending,…” Oct 6, 22:37
VERN on Play Dirty: “The horribleness of SLAYGROUND is amplified by that being the one book that deliberately breaks the format and actually seems…” Oct 6, 18:46
Matthew B. on Play Dirty: “The best Parker movie is POINT BLANK. The closest movies to the books are THE OUTFIT and MIS À SAC,…” Oct 6, 15:20