Posts Tagged ‘slashers’
Monday, November 8th, 2010
The last couple Octobers I was on the hunt for undiscovered slasher gems. I would go through the video store where they keep all the slasher type business, looking for ones I never noticed or never bothered to pay attention to, especially VHS since if it’s not on DVD yet it’s gonna be pretty obscure. This led to some really shitty ones and a few minor discoveries. Last year I also learned to look in the murder mysteries, it turned out there were a few good ones like EYES OF A STRANGER that cross over into that territory.
This year I hit gold right at the start (yeah, I know – ’cause you guys drew me a map). After that there was no pressure so I got some non-slasher ones and dipped into some of the horror sections I usually don’t look at. But while browsing the Euro-Horror I spotted this 2006 Norwegian slasher movie. It drew my attention by being next to its part 2, so that seemed like the type of shit I might like. You know how I am, I’m a sucker for the legitimizing power of the series.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Norway, slashers
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 24 Comments »
Saturday, October 30th, 2010
The year after FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2 and THE BURNING and the year before SLEEPAWAY CAMP there was another summer-camp-slasher movie called MADMAN. It takes place on the last night at a camp for gifted children when a campfire story seems to summon an undead killer who proceeds to butcher the counselors one by one.
The head of the camp tells the killer’s legend as a ghost story to scare the kids. His name is Madman Marz, he was a wife-beating alcoholic farmer who went nuts, murdered his wife and daughter, got hung for it but his body disappeared. On the other hand it’s mentioned that he once got part of his nose bitten off in a bar fight and he didn’t even notice. So that part of the story makes him sound pretty cool. We’re all human, we have our good traits and our bad traits. Leatherface, for example, is very good at sewing.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Gaylen Ross, slashers, summer camps
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 27 Comments »
Wednesday, October 27th, 2010
VISITING HOURS is up there with the best slasher movies I’ve seen. You think you’ve pretty much exhausted them and then you find out a gem like this that was sitting there all throughout the 1980s, its distinctive VHS box staring at you from the optical illusion eye sockets of its hospital room windows lit in skull formation. I knew that image like I knew my own hands but it never once occurred to me to ask “What is this movie? Should I watch it?” Not until you guys recommended it to me for the hundredth time. So thanks for that.
Some might consider this more suspense thriller than horror. It’s different from a HALLOWEEN or a FRIDAY THE 13TH because there’s nothing supernatural, there’s no mask, we know alot about the killer and he’s not a monster or a legend. He’s just a crazy weirdo who’s slipped through the cracks so far. But I consider it a slasher movie because it has a whole lot of the classic tropes: woman-hating maniac with sexual hangups on a knife rampage, suspenseful stalking sequences, upsetting murders, strong female victims-turned heroes. Carol J. Clover must not’ve known about this one either or she would’ve been all over it in Men, Women, and Chain Saws. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Canadian, hospital horror, Michael Ironside, Slasher Search, slashers
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 42 Comments »
Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010
Sometimes when we talk about all these horror remakes it seems kind of senseless, you can’t even tell what they’re thinking when they pick which movies to remake. But the reasoning behind this one is clear: HOUSE ON SORORITY ROW is one of our culture’s most recognized and beloved stories ever. The name recognition alone is invaluable, even if you change the name, like they did here. But the idea of a killer going after sorority girls to avenge a prank gone wrong, you can’t just make something like that up. You gotta remake it up. You buy the rights to it, then you change what the prank is and who is accidentally killed and who gets revenge and how they do it and why, and you change the title and most of the characters and events.
I trust I’ve made my case. This young generation was hungry for a movie that is not named after but is slightly similar to a whole bunch of movies they never heard of including HOUSE ON SORORITY ROW. These producers and filmatists could feel that hunger, they could hear the growling stomach of the zeitgeist, and they delivered it this pizza. And we, as a culture, used a coupon and didn’t tip. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Briana Evigan, Carrie Fisher, Jamie Chung, Matt O'Leary, prank gone wrong, remakes, Rumer Willis, slashers, sororities
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 46 Comments »
Thursday, November 5th, 2009
You know what, if you want to enjoy life you’ve got to be spontaneous. Some of us, we get locked into these rigid routines. We get comfortable and stop taking risks or doing new things. You know, you take a certain route to work, you eat at the same places, same foods. If a stranger comes up and tries to talk to you it’s not expected, you try to get away. Maybe you don’t like to go to concerts or to movies alone or you don’t go outside at night. Whatever. You get stuck in your boring, safe ways.
But sometimes you oughta shake things up a little. Do things you normally wouldn’t do, say yes to questions you’d normally say no to. Isn’t there a Jim Carrey movie that addresses this?
Take for example this woman who works at a flower shop in this movie. She’s closing up and this guy who looks kind of like Dustin Hoffman starts knocking on the door saying his mother is sick and can she please sell him some flowers, just real quick, something pre-made is fine. People like that are a pain in the ass (it’s a business with posted hours) and normally she’d probly wave him away. But to be nice she lets him in, and for her trouble ends up just missing her bus. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: slashers
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 37 Comments »
Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009
In further Halloween leftovers I have a double feature of “cursed movie” movies.
After seeing THE SUBSTITUTE and PORKY’S 2: PORKY IS NOT IN THIS ONE THOUGH I wanted to catch up with all the other movies Alan Ormsby had anything to do with, and POPCORN seemed like a good choice for Halloween. It’s about some film students who put on a big vintage horror marathon complete with William Castle style gimmicks. It happens at a big old style movie house and the patrons come in costume and ready to be obnoxious.
But the most obnoxious is a mystery maniac who’s terrorizing the place, possibly for reasons related to a “film cult” whose unfinished last film POSSESSOR these students happened to find a print of. Apparently this cult leader/auteur named Gates showed the movie before burning down a theater… and they never found the body. Not sure if that is relevant but thought I’d mention it just in case, I don’t know. Might be an unnecessary detail. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alan Ormsby, Australian cinema, Dee Wallace-Stone, meta-slashers, Molly Ringwald, slashers
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 21 Comments »
Monday, November 2nd, 2009
There are alot of awful things about PSYCHO IV. It forces Anthony Perkins to play Norman Bates almost delighting in his evil, announcing that he’s going to kill again. It was an early example of the snake-eating-its-tail, dog-licking-its-balls, bird-drawing-a-picture-of-its-egg modern Hollywood attitude that what people want to see is a detailed re-enactment of the backstory that happened before the other movie they already liked. It re-uses way too much dialogue from the original, like “Mother! Oh God Mother, blood! Blood!” and “We all go a little mad sometimes.” It has laughable transitions from flashback to wraparound, like when it dissolves from young Norman laying face first on the floor to old Norman in the same position while telling the story over the phone to a talk radio host (CCH Pounder). And for Christ’s sake it has a part where he cuts his finger in the kitchen and the blood is shown swirling down the sink drain. I mean for fuck’s sake director Mick Garris, Moriarty says you’re a nice guy but come on man. That shit cannot be defended. Norman Bates got off by reason of insanity, you will not. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Anthony Perkins, made-for-TV-sequels, Mick Garris, slashers
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 30 Comments »
Monday, November 2nd, 2009
I hope everybody had a good Halloween. Thanks for sticking around for the horror movie leftovers. Among other things I watched the entire PSYCHO series to prepare for the holiday. Well, the Anthony Perkins ones – I didn’t get to the remake or the TV show with Bud Cort. Those will have to wait.
In my opinion part 3’s not quite as good as the previous one, but it has plenty of good touches. It’s directed by Anthony Perkins himself (his first time, and the only other thing he directed was the comedy LUCKY STIFF). It starts out with an homage to VERTIGO in a whole Technicolor-looking sequence involving nuns in a bell tower. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Anthony Perkins, Jeff Fahey, slashers
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 6 Comments »
Friday, October 30th, 2009
PSYCHO II is the best sequel ever made to a Hitchcock movie, better than THE BIRDS II: LAND’S END, NORTH BY NORTHWEST: RETURN TO RUSHMORE or even VERTIGOS. That’s faint praise though, since I actually haven’t seen the first one and the other two don’t exist as far as I know. What I’m trying to say is, no matter how prejudiced you might be against somebody sequelizing a classic like PSYCHO, this is actually a really enjoyable sequel, a clever and suspenseful tribute to Hitchcock and to the character of Norman Bates as portrayed by Anthony Perkins.
It’s 22 years after the events of PSYCHO. Norman Bates has been in an institution, having been found not guilty by reason of insanity, but is now considered fully rehabilitated. Against the petitioning of Lila Loomis (formerly Crane, and still played by Vera Miles) Norman is released. His doctor (Robert Loggia) seems to truly care about and believe in his mental stability, but regrets that cutbacks prevent society from having more social workers to look after him. For Norman’s sake and for ours. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Anthony Perkins, Dennis Franz, Meg Tilly, Richard Franklin, Robert Loggia, slashers, Tom Holland
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 44 Comments »
Monday, October 26th, 2009
Man, if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck… oh wait, this guy doesn’t walk like a duck. But the title slasher of NEW YORK RIPPER is a guy who makes quacking noises while killing, and in taunting phone calls.
Franco and Josh both recommended this Lucio Fulci movie to me, and I remember years ago when I first saw MANIAC somebody suggested it to me then. I gotta admit I don’t think it’s exactly good, but it’s definitely unusual and enjoyable to watch once. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Lucio Fulci, slashers
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 24 Comments »
