UMUSTBEBORED

NEGATIVE HAPPY CHAINSAW EDGE....

2012-03-11T10:15:00.000-07:00

Yes, it is true. In this world there exists a movie called NEGATIVE HAPPY CHAINSAW EDGE. I will give you one guess as to the country's origin that this movie was made in. I found this one on THE NETFLIX and started watching it immediately knowing nothing about it. I am just going to assume this movie is based off a Japanese comic book. I can't be too sure since there isn't any tentacle rape going on in this movie. But there are a ton of weird ideas play-doughed together to form a story about young love. This is not a horror movie despite the chainsaw wielding maniac on the poster. This is a love story. Yeah, I guess the best way to get me to watch a love story is to put a chainsaw wielding maniac in it with a lot of kung-fu crap. SOLD!

Yosuki (I'm not even sure I am spelling his name right) is a young man in high school who chances upon a girl his age named Eri who every night must fight a chainsaw wielding maniac who comes from the moon. I am not sure if he really comes from the moon. I am just assuming that. Hey, anything is possible in Japan. The guy looks like he just escaped from a Resident Evil game. Seeing a chance to be greater than his friend Noto who died in a bike wreck, Yosuki tries his best to help Eri fight the monster each and every night. He hopes to top Noto with a greater more spectacular death. Noto was always better and cooler than Yosuki. The weapons chosen are always different. She will use a sword or throwing knives but then she will fight the monster with a golf club or umbrella for some reason. Don't ask me why. I have no idea. The monster is defeated every night but it gets away and never dies.

NHCE is creative and fun and even a little touching. Even though it is a weird movie with weird moments and weird characters it all feels natural to the story It all belongs. I think the only problem I have is that the energy the movie has doesn't continue throughout the entire film. Not sure where the movie is going with no resolution in sight with repetitive scenes of hanging around waiting for a monster to show slows the film down slightly. The focus of the story is on two teens dealing with their own personal demons in different forms (Noto and Chainsaw Wielding Maniac) and along the way they fall in love. There is some big special effects fight scenes with the whole flying around in the air craziness you would expect from the land of the rising sun. It is all good but there is only a few of these scenes. The rest is all character development stuff. But that is good too.

NEGATIVE HAPPY CHAINSAW EDGE was a nice surprise. If you want to see something different that your nerd friends don't know about yet then I suggest watching this one. Your friends will think you are the coolest when you tell them about it. After that get new friends because your old friends aren't good enough for you anymore, you culturally superior bastard.

Jason.

SILENT TRIGGER: DOLPH LUNDGREN IS A CAMPING NOOB!

2012-02-28T02:32:00.000-08:00

When I am playing CALL OF DUTY multiplayer I can almost always point out who the snipers are in the lobby. When I see a guy with a gamer tag that has a word like SNIPE, LONE, WOLF, NINJA, SWORD, ALPHA, RECON, IAMAGAYASSSNIPER in it I just know they are setting up camp somewhere lying on the ground in a heavily dark corner complimenting themselves on just how badass they are because they are going to have the best Kill/Death ratio in the lobby. They like to pretend that somewhere in this world there is someone who is not a child molester (this time) that gives a darn. CALL OF DUTY has given snipers a bad name. Thankfully Ol' Dolph is here to show how badass snipers really are.

SILENT TRIGGER (directed by Russell Mulcahy, the guy who did HIGHLANDER, lol) is a strange film indeed. It is not your typical action film. Dolph Lundgren plays a sniper working for something called 'The Agency'. It is a vague organization that I can only assume exists to perform assassinations on political targets. At the beginning of the film we are treated to a flashback where Dolph does not pull the trigger on a political target and his female spotter Clegg is ordered to kill him. A helicopter shows up with a group of local militia (I assume) preventing her from killing Lundgren. The question is would she have done it in the first place. As the movie goes on we are treated to more flashbacks expanding from the beginning showing us Dolph's and Clegg's escape and parting when Dolph finds out that she has been ordered to kill him.

The main story takes place in a large skyscraper under construction where Dolph is setting up for another assassination. Here is what I don't understand. Years have passed since the incident where he couldn't pull the trigger yet Dolph is still working for the same agency. Why is he still with them and why haven't they killed him yet? I don't get it. I must have missed something. Apparently Dolph is recreating the same incident with Clegg returning unaware that her partner is Dolph. He wants to know if she would have killed him and at the same time get revenge on the guy who ordered his death. That is the story.

What is really weird about this film is how the tone of the film changes from an action movie to a haunting psychological horror movie. The empty building is spooked with foreboding music highlighted with the boom of thunder and drowned in falling rain. There are two overnight watchmen who guard the building. Now usually in most action movies these characters last about ten seconds on screen either by getting themselves perished by the baddies or they just don't show them anymore because they aren't important. In SILENT TRIGGER they become two of the central characters of the film. Basically there are only four main characters Dolph, Clegg and two night watchmen. Very strange. One of the night watchmen is a real bastard and tries to rape Clegg. At one point he starts doing drugs and starts to see C.G.I. spiders everywhere. Weird. Actually what is really weird is he has small spiders tattooed all over his body. He kind of becomes the main antagonist for awhile. None that is what you are expecting.

There are only about three action moments in the film. I don't really count the fight with Lundgren and the crazy security guard but you can if you want to. Actionwise this is a decent film. The beginning with Dolph on a tower gunning down baddies with his sniper rifle is awesome and at the end he shoots a guy with it from point blank range. Very bloody. The blood effects are pretty good but there is a cartoon helicopter straight out of a SYFY Original Movie that crashes into a tower with really weak cartoon explosions. Hey, at least they use practical blood effects. Nowadays they would color that stuff in with an electronic computing device.

SILENT TRIGGER is a unique action movie experience. I liked it alot and if you are a fan of Dolph's then you should too. Dolph Lundgren makes camping noobs look like total badasses........Nah, they still suck but I ain't telling Dolph that. Be my guest.

Jason

I COME IN PEACE....Wait...DARK ANGEL? WTF?

2012-02-27T06:15:00.002-08:00

Why is the U.S. release of I COME IN PEACE titled DARK ANGEL? This isn't nerdy anime. This is a badass cops versus a drug dealer from outer space movie whose organs are made of cottage cheese. The alien is a really tall guy who pumps people full of heroin and the spikes their brains and extracts the endorphins that are produced so he can sell them in space. If Dolph doesn't stop him more will come and it will be this big time slaughter. Coolest thing of all is the alien only knows one phrase in English. That phrase is "I come in peace".

So Dolph is an undercover cop trying to bust a local big time drug lord. We are introduced to his character listening in on a conversation from his car. His partner is inside doing a drug deal with the boss himself. But across the street some not nice guys rob a liquor store forcing Dolph to leave his post and kick some butt. Unfortunately this happens as his partner is exposed as a cop and murdered. The boss leaves laughing actually enjoying the moment. Now I just wanted to point this scene out because the rest of the movie is the standard two cops paired together who don't like each other story. We already have seen this kind of story before. Obviously these two will hate each other but eventually find themselves friends after saving each others life once or twice. I COME IN PEACE should be noted as one of those rare action films that leaves a big loose end. Dolph never avenges the death of his partner. I guess big alien trumps that story. You see the drug boss goes on vacation. We never see him again. In fact he sends Dolph a Christmas card with a picture of the boss in Hawaii or some place tropical with two hot chicks having the time of his life. He never gets his comeuppance. He gets away with murder and gets to boast about it. I find that kind of shocking. There should have been this big scene at the end where all the bad guys get together to do a really big drug deal but the alien shows up with Dolph and his new partner following closely behind to start a big shoot out between goons, cops and alien. The whole thing should have ended with all the bad guys dead. It kind of bothers me that it didn't. I figure the writers forgot all about that guy and they were like "Whoops" when the film was done.

This is still a really good movie. The tall alien is pretty badass. He likes to shoot what I assume is his collection of Celine Dion Cd's into people's throats. I guess liking Celine Dion was just a passing phase from back in the day. Now he looks more like he is into Norwegian Death Power Metal. He is a formidable foe for Dolph to say the least. Dolph has to rely on the alien's own technology to blow him up at the end. There is a cop alien who shows up to die and give Dolph his gun that is really good at blowing up cars. It fires and stuff just explodes. That is it. I could use something like that in CALL OF DUTY. I can't help but notice how similar this movie is to Rutger Hauer's SPLIT SECOND. Both are about two polar opposite cops who come together to bring down a strange creature. Also both movies have that mousy gnome faced actor Michael J. Pollard in them. Both have an exploding monster at the end of them too. It is just kind of weird.

I don't have much to say about this one. It is good and you should watch it. Just don't call it DARK ANGEL. This isn't a film for the Nerd-o's. THE END.

Jason

SKEW

2012-02-20T02:09:00.000-08:00

Full disclosure time, folks. The director, Sevé Schelenz requested that I do a review of his film SKEW which I happily accepted. I think that is a very ballsy move on his part to ask someone who could turn out to be a complete jerkola to review his work. Did you know that there are horror fans out there in the world that have Internet access who are jerkolas? Anyhoo in order to watch the film I had to subscribe to THE NETFLIX again which I am glad I did.   I was made aware of a show called DOWNTOWN ABBEY which I was told had a character named Thomas who looked just like me. Truth be told I guess the dreamy eyed, dark haired, handsome Thomas does have a strong resemblance to me. How charming. Now I know what I would look like if I kissed another man.............

Moving on.

SKEW is one of those 'caught-on-camera/found footage' type of horror movies. I know that the genre is a little overplayed nowadays like it was when THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT was so popular but SKEW is one of the good ones. There was a lot of thought put into the making of this movie. I will admit that I am a big fan of these caught on camera films like the first PARANORMAL ACTIVITY and BLAIR WITCH so I had no problem sitting through another film with similar style. If you hated those movies then you probably wouldn't like SKEW. But if your main complaint was that those films didn't show anything then let me tell you that SKEW shows stuff. Ghosts jumping at your face kind of stuff.

So three friends Simon, Eva and Richard are going cross country to a friends wedding. Simon is the main character who has brought along his new video camera to film every single moment possible. He has a girlfriend who oddly enough decided not to come. Along the way we discover Simon's attraction to Eva which as the trip goes on strains the friendship of the three. Eva is Richard's girlfriend. Whoops. Got to love drama. Also it doesn't help that Simon is starting to get a little creepy with his new hand held camera. The poor guy can't seem to stop filming and his sanity starts to be questioned. The trip is plagued by death all around. They accidentally run over a coyote, a bus full of people crash and die and a hotel clerk is shot shortly after checking into their hotel. People's faces sometimes will show up on video as twisted misshapen C.G.I. gooblty-gook. Simon discovers that his camera skews the faces of those who are about to die. Worse yet maybe the camera itself might be causing their deaths. To break up the monotony of people talking in cars or in hotel rooms the ghosts of the dead will pop up and say "Boo" from time to time. At one point Simon is filming Eva and Richard sleeping. When he pans around the room BOO! a ghost appears in the room.  Immediately we see the footage rewind and check to see if the ghost is caught on film. It is not. Whoa! Now wait a minute! Don't get all high and mighty by pointing out that if this was a caught on camera movie you wouldn't see the rewind. Just let the movie do its thing. This is one of those movies you got to stick with to the very end. All will be revealed......sort of.

At first I wasn't sure how I felt about SKEW. I have seen these kinds of movies before. The scares are a little forced and when you can tell you are looking at a special effect the film loses a little bit of its realism. But if you are paying attention to what is going on, SKEW has a way of reeling you in. A lot of credit has to go to the actors who bring a strong sense of reality to the movie. They don't feel like actors playing parts in a horror movie. They come off as genuine people which is a hard thing to do in these kind of "reality" horror movies. As the spooky stuff started to happen I was constantly intrigued wondering what was going to happen next. I wanted to know why all of this was going on. There is a strong element of the psychological at play here. The ending is what really sets SKEW apart from the rest. It is a very simple moment. If you are not paying attention you might not even notice it even when the film points it out. It is a moment that makes you question everything you have just watched. Its good stuff and exactly what these caught on film type of horror movies are suppose to be. CREEPY AS HELL!

Even though the ending left me with more questions than answers I can't help but recommend SKEW. It is one of those movies that still has me thinking.  I replay a lot of the scenes from the film in my smaller than usual sized brain trying to piece together the enigma the movie left me with. The relationship of the three characters is important to the overall outcome of the film. You care about these three. You care about what is going on. And you dread what will happen next. Not the scariest movie but it is hard to shake off the creepy feeling the film gives you at the end. It is a good WTF moment. Watch it on THE NETFLIX, folks.

Jason

OFFICIALLY UNINTERESTED IN THE EXPENDABLES 2 PG-13!!!

2012-01-23T07:05:00.000-08:00

Well let us just face the facts, folks. It is a cruel cold world and happy endings are few and far between. When things line up and start to point to the inviting half open door of awesomeness, WATCH OUT(!) because balanced atop that door just on the other side is a bucket full of cold harsh reality. I should have known that THE EXPENDABLES 2 was too good to be true. I should have learned from last years disappointments in my own personal life that I shouldn't get my hopes up. But I did. I dared to dream big. I expected nothing more than a action packed violent film that trumps the original. Then I found out that THE EXPENDABLES 2 is going to be PG-13. PG-13? How about PEE-PEE 13?

I know it is too early to judge because I haven't seen the movie yet. Who knows maybe the whole PG-13 is just a hoax. And who knows maybe one day I will discover a large vein of gold deposited somewhere far up my butt. Not bloody likely but I am going to keep digging just to be sure. What I have read so far is that Chuck Norris doesn't want any bad words in his movies because kids maybe watching. Uh, last time I checked THE EXPENDABLES was made for adults. Wouldn't the more violent aspect of the film be more disturbing to kids? I believe honestly that the film was probably written to be PG-13 to begin with. A harder edge film probably wouldn't interest a high on values Chuck Norris anymore. If you think about it changing all the unpleasant words but still having lots and lots of stabbings to the face will still land you an R rating. If the first EXPENDABLES had no bad words in it but still had all the blood and guts and torso removings would that mean it was PG-13?

Violence matters, folks. You can't just make a big action movie dependent on big car chases, big explosions, and big heights to hang off of stuff. Those are called adventure films. Which is better ROBOCOP or ROBOCOP 3? Which was the more violent film? Which one was the smarter film? Which film didn't insult the audience by visually lessening the consequences of what it looks like to be shot? Which film left the greater impression on you? Did a jet pack flying Robocop make up for the lack of blood? It is a larger spectacle to have a flying Robocop than one that simply drives around. Violence is an ugly thing and when you water it down you weaken the horrible aftermath of it. It makes violence not seem so bad. When ED-209 is unloading two cannons into some poor bastard in ROBOCOP you see how horrible it is to be shot. At least it didn't look too pleasant for that corporate executive guy, what's his face.

I am predicting that THE EXPENDABLES 2 will have a lot of car chases, a lot of kung-fu, a lot of jumping from explosions, and neck breaks galore. Maybe a bloodless stabbing or two also. Will that be better than droves of baddies blown to pieces by a fully automatic shotgun? I can't wait to see a fight between Stallone and Van Damme but will it be so over the top in it's scale to make up for the lack of on screen violence? Is this going to be way over indulgent like Darth Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi's final fight in EPISODE 3? I doubt the fight will top Scott Adkins and Van Damme's fight in THE SHEPHERD or any fight scene in a Isaac Florentine film. Being a large action film does not mean great action film. I want another RAMBO part 4 not STOP OR MY MOM WILL SHOOT.

I will see THE EXPENDABLES 2 in the theater. I am sure I will like it. But I know it won't be great. I know already that it could have been better. It will be fine at best. Despite having some major flaws THE EXPENDABLES part 1 will be better. It did not compromise. A good action film never compromises the integrity of it's art no matter how cheesy it is. Fix your film, Stallone. We want blood and major impalement issues galore. This time how about using practical realistic effects. Stop relying on C.G.I. cartoony blood. And don't put another Shinedown song in your movie. They suck.

I can only hope that one day I will wake up and all of this was just a bad dream. Until then I will be more excited for UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: A NEW DIMENSION and BULLET TO THE HEAD.....Oh, and THE RAID!

Jason

HELLBOUND! Watch CHUCK NORRIS fight Evil by punching it in the face!

2012-01-14T07:32:00.000-08:00

HELLBOUND is about Chuck Norris fighting the Devil. Well maybe not the Devil but the Devil's right hand man named Protanos or at least I think that was his name. Protanos was sealed in a tomb during medieval times and was accidentally released in the fifties. After his release he spent the years becoming an archaeologist searching for pieces of a sceptre that will give him power to rule the world. But he made one big mistake. He threw a hooker out a window onto Chuck Norris's car. Whoops.

The beginning of HELLBOUND is surprisingly good for the most part. After we are treated to the comforting CANNON PICTURES logo the film starts off with a king riding a horse with a small army of soldiers armed with crossbows following on foot. A priest is with them and he points to the direction they need to go. He leads them to an old church (I think) where Protanos is conducting a ceremony where he is about to sacrifice a baby prince which will give him his power to rule the earth. This is a pretty exciting scene where soldiers are fighting monster dressed as monks. If a soldier is killed by a monster then the dead body jumps back to life as a monster too. Protanos is pretty good at fighting off the steadfast king and his merry men but he isn't very good at not getting stabbed in the back by an old priest carrying a big stick. So down goes Protanos. He is locked away in a tomb until hundreds of years later he is released by a couple of grave robbers. That is all the exciting stuff, folks. After the promise of a larger more epic film we are then treated to a buddy cop movie that tries it's dangness to not go anywhere as slowly as possible.

Now in modern times we are introduced to Chuck Norris (playing a character named Sgt. Shatter which means they have officially ran out of cool badass names for action heroes.) and his partner Jackson. Jackson apparently has made an important life decision to live out his days as a Whoopie Goldberg impersonator JUMPIN' JACK FLASH style. That is okay though because Chuck likes to dress like Don Johnson from the show MIAMI VICE. HELLBOUND was made in the nineties. Does that mean Chuck is from Canada? Through the course of the movie the two Chicago cops stuck in the eighties get involved in solving a case that takes them to Israel where they eventually discover that Protanos is a demon and overall jerk.

The whole fish out of water story is very unsatisfying. The two cops run around getting in where they are not wanted but nothing ever happens. That is to say that Chuck doesn't kick much butt in HELLBOUND. I think the makers of this film forgot that they had Chuck Norris in their movie. There is a short fight scene in the middle but it feels tacked on and it is not very memorable. The ending does get better with the final confrontation of Jackson and Norris versus Protanos. Poor Jackson is tossed around like the cereal piece in a child's bowl of Lucky Charms. Chuck Norris on the other hand has no problem taking on the ancient powerful demon with his Fists of Punching, his Ferocious Feet of Explosion and his Powerful Beard of.....Stuff. This is a pretty awesome scene that probably birthed all those Chuck Norris jokes that were so popular a few short years ago. You see the movie doesn't build Chuck up to be some super powerful angel in disguise on earth to search for Protanos or have him as a descendant of an ancient race of magical demon hunters. No, he is just Chuck Norris and that is the only fact he needs to beat the Devil's right hand man. I think that is pretty darn awesome..........and hilarious.

Chuck is likable and the main attraction to this film. He just doesn't have that strong of a presence. The problem is that the film wants Chuck to be a cool role model for the kids yet somehow still be a rated R renegade anti-hero. Is this a family friendly film or hard action film? I mean there are at times some gore here and there. And it isn't too pleasant to see a woman tossed out a window and crash land on the hood of Chuck's car. So why did they put an annoying kid in this movie too. No action just some stupid kid that they have to chase around to fill in the running time and conveniently have information needed for Chuck and Jackson to move on to the next scene of talking. HELLBOUND suffers from some really bad ADR too. The hooker I mentioned in the first paragraph of this review is completely ADR'd. Her voice and words don't even come close to matching what she is saying or what she looks like. It is very distracting. Poor Chuck has a few of those moments as well but I'm not going to tell him that.

HELLBOUND was a movie I didn't expect much from so I shouldn't complain too much. It has a strong beginning and ending but the middle is annoying and gets pretty tiresome with scene after scene of talk and buddy cop camaraderie. I kept waiting for those scenes where thugs would show up for no good reason other than to get kicked in the face. But it only happened once. For shame, HELLBOUND. For shame.

Jason

RANA: THE LEGEND OF SHADOW LAKE aka CROAKED FROG MONSTER FROM HELL for some reason.

2012-01-09T05:21:00.000-08:00

There are a lot of things that suck in this world but RANA: THE LEGEND OF SHADOW LAKE is not one of them. Basically RANA is a low budget CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON. There is a lake. In this lake is a monster. According to Indian legend if you throw gold into the lake you will get cool stuff. But if you pee in the lake instead of getting out and using the bathroom which is the polite thing to do you will be harpooned. The legend goes something like that. Maybe that is not entirely true. I wasn't paying that much attention when they were explaining the legend of Rana. Either way I figure gold or not if you get anywhere near Rana you will get yourself perished.

Apparently Rana doesn't like bad actors getting anywhere near it's lake of doom. The dialogue is terrible. You can tell that this was probably the writers first script. The acting? Nonexistent. Imagine making a movie in your backyard and having your friends and relatives play the characters. It's kind of not good. But despite all of this I can easily say that this movie rocks. Why, you ask? Because I have really terrible taste in movies. Also like ALIEN FACTOR you can see that this film has heart.

The movie is about a monster in a lake that kills people but there is a little more imagination here. The lake is suppose to be rich with gold but the lake is bottomless. Rana's hands burns everything they touch. You can see steam coming from it's hands when it walks around on land. That insinuates Rana is some kind of demon possibly. This isn't your typical creature from a lake movie. RANA does have spooky atmosphere even though the hokey music will take you out of the mood. The fact that the movie was filmed in the seventies and on location at a real lake adds to it authenticity. This kind of a scary movie. There are some jump scares that are pretty effective too. I think I jumped three times which never happens especially in big budget horror. Once I even saw it coming and it still made me jump.

I saw this movie back in the day when I was like ten on the USA network. A friend of mine found it on DVD under the title CROAKED distributed by TROMA. Why would TROMA change the title. The original title is much better and doesn't insinuate that this is a film about a giant frog monster. If you saw this back in the day then you might actually like it. It's nice for the nostalgia factor. It is one of those contradicting films that has more negatives than positives yet somehow it is still good. I wouldn't change a thing.

Jason

INVASION U.S.A. THIS IS WHY CHUCK NORRIS IS IN THE EXPENDABLES 2.

2012-01-06T09:23:00.000-08:00

INVASION U.S.A. is a movie about what not to do when invading America. Rostov (played by Richard Lynch) is a soviet agent planning on starting a series of terrorist attacks in the good ol' U.S.A. in a attempt to bring it down. So what does he do to start this invasion? Why he goes straight to Chuck Norris's living shack in the middle of the bayou and blows it up......Correct me if I am wrong but wouldn't that be the last thing you would do? Guess what happens when you blow up Chuck Norris. You get your butt kicked. That is exactly what happens to Rostov. Now to be fair I can't really blame Rostov's logic in his preemptive strike. Rostov is plagued with nightmares of Chuck Norris kicking him in the face. Can you imagine that? I would probably take a shot at Chuck too if I had such nightmarish visions. I feel kind of sorry for ya, Rosto. Lesson learned: Don't piss off Beardy McBeard.

In my know nothing opinion this is Chuck Norris's finest film and best acting. He is a cold mean presence in this movie which is kind of unusual from his standard laid back generic good guys he played before this and after. Norris has few lines but when he speaks his voice is stern, precise and barely above a whisper. Less is more with this actor. His one liners are pretty clever like "If you come in here again I will beat you with so many rights you will beg for a left" and "Rostov, it's time to die". Well maybe that last one isn't so clever but it is scary especially if you are Rostov. Chuck is a total badass running around and showing up at just the right time and in just the right place to shoot bad guys with his two Uzis and knife them in the hand to get them to talk. He even has a duel with Rostov with rocket launchers. It can't get more badass than that!

INVASION U.S.A. is a very tight script rushing to the action scenes with little time to develop the characters or generate a boring love interest. Most action films have some woman running around with the protagonist for no reason other than to have a pointless love interest. INVASION does have a woman reporter that comes in from time to time to raise questions or show up conveniently in a car so Norris can take over the wheel and pursue fleeing bad guys. But before any level of love interest can develop the script brushes her aside in favor of more Norris gunning down baddies or blowing them up with their own bombs. Good stuff. Even at the end after Rostov is completely obliterated the movie just ends on a shot of a victorious Chuck Norris. There isn't even a scene where Norris emerges from the building to a crowd of reporters and police. Pushing past them only to stop at the smiling sexy reporter who says "Can I have that exclusive now?" for which he replies "ROUNDHOUSE KICK TO THE FACE!"...I mean he says "Here is you exclusive." and then kisses her. None of that here. This movie follows the HAMMER STUDIOS rule : When the monster is dead the movie is over.

Another thing to note is how extremely violent INVASION U.S.A. is. Civilians die by the boat load. I would dare argue that more innocent people die than bad guys. The violence itself can be rather extreme too. Rostov has a tendency to shoot guys in the balls and even smashes some chick snorting coke face down to where her straw is shoved straight up her nose. Screaming bloody murder she is violently thrown through a window. Yikes. One scene has a young couple making out on a deserted beach at night. In horror movie fashion a bad guy creeps up and murders them then smiles at something funny going on the screen of the portable t.v. the couple brought with them on the beach. Rostov shows up in a quiet neighborhood street during Christmas time and starts blowing up family houses with a magical bazooka that never needs to be reloaded. What a bad dude. I do need to get me one of those magical bazookas though.

If you are interested in getting into Chuck Norris films then I would highly recommend this one. I haven't seen all of his work yet but I gotta admit he hasn't done very many good ones. Most of his are guilty pleasures at best. INVASION can be one of those too but I think as an action movie this one is excellent. It could have been way cheesier to the point of DEADLY PREY silliness. It came close with that magical bazooka yet somehow the film manages to retain it's serious tone. I think the thanks for keeping the film in line is Chuck's cold demeanor and the brutal violence that is spread throughout usually perpetrated by the excellent Richard Lynch playing Rostov. Maybe it is a stupid film but I think that the film delivers the goods and more so. ROUNDHOUSE KICK TO THE FACE!

Jason

IN THE NAME OF THE KING 2: TWO WORLDS

2012-01-05T07:46:00.000-08:00

Lundgren looks kind of pissed. I would be too if I was in this film version of suck. Okay, I admit it. I bought this movie on blu-ray. Yes, I am well aware of the craptasticness of Uwe Boll who happens to be the worlds worst director. But c'mon, guys. Give me a break. The movie has Dolph Lundgren in it. The year is 2012 the year of THE EXPENDABLES 2. The time is now to celebrate. In my defense I do have two good reasons why I bought this movie and contributed to financing Uwe Boll's future cinematic atrocities. 1.) It has Dolph Lundgren in it and I like to support his movies cuz he is awesome. 2.) I am an idiot....

Dolph is a ex-military turned martial arts instructor who is pulled back in time for some reason. There he meets a king and they talk. Then they talk some more. Then as the movie goes on the king and this strange man from the future talk even more. It goes on and on like this until the king who turns out to be bad (surprise surprise) is killed by Dolph in Dolph's bathroom in present times. That is pretty much the entire movie and I am only slightly exaggerating.

Once again director Uwe Boll has put to film (yet again) a script that is obviously a first draft treatment. Remember BLOODRAYNE? I swear to you there is no story here whatsoever. Lundgren has to go kill a witch for some reason who turns out to be good while the king who sent him on this mission is the real bad guy. Every direct to video action movie has the same story. But Uwe goes a little further in the incompetence department. You see there are these Darth Maul like bandits that show up to start up some nerd style LARPing action scenes. They work for the witch but when Dolph finds the witch in their village they allow him to find the witch because they are really the good guys BUT then we find out that only the witch is good and the bandits are controlled by the king. Maybe I missed something but why not just have the bandits kill the witch if he needed her dead. I know there was a lot of talking in this movie where they may have explained why but after about five minutes into the first conversation Lundgren has with the king my mind tuned out. Each conversation he has with the king goes on forever and it gets to the point that you actually dread the appearance of the king because you know you are in store some more pointless meandering never ending blah-blah-blah. My mind blah-blah-blah'd its way through this movie so I have no idea what was going on.

The first IN THE NAME OF THE KING: A DUNGEON SIEGE TALE was suppose to be a movie adaptation of the game DUNGEON SIEGE. Instead the film completely ripped off THE LORD OF THE RINGS movies. It took me forever to figure out why Uwe didn't just call the dang movie DUNGEON SIEGE. Looking at the unnecessarily long title and similar look to the film I now know why. There was a video game that came out recently called TWO WORLDS. Is this suppose to be a movie version of that game? I am not going to even try to figure that one out.

If you find castles made by LARPers hot and sexy then IN THE NAME OF THE KING 2: TWO WORLDS is just the movie for you. Uwe loves filming the front gates of the cardboard castle. You will see the gates open to let people out. Sometime you will see the gates open to let people in. Then there is a shot where the gates close because it is night time. I was kind of wondering if there was some kind of weird fetish thing going on with the gates. I guess I am too normal to understand those things. There is no script so Uwe has to fill up the time some how. I would also like to point out that medieval times Europe or Britain looks a little too much like the vast wilderness of Canada. I'm just saying. There is no attention to detail. The sets and costumes are all fake and too clean looking. Lundgren's character doesn't even seem all that surprised or concerned that he has just gone back in time with no clear way of going back. Apparently the king wants to destroy the future. I still have no idea why. That would be like if I decided that the year 3012 sucked and I wanted to destroy it. Why? I would be dead by then anyway. What a complete waste of my life researching time travel and spending billions of monies on fraudulent time machines. I could be more productive spending more time drinking and getting rejected by women. Again maybe the movie explained why during all the boring talking scenes. I don't know. By the time they were explaining everything I was day dreaming about more important things like STAR WARS stuff and other nerd crap.

There was a C.G.I. SyFy Channel Original Movie quality dragon that provided Lundgren with the best line in the movie but that is the only good thing I will say. I think the title 'TWO WORLDS' is a reference to Uwe Boll's mental state. We live on Earth world. Uwe lives on Mars. That's kind of mean. I am sure Uwe is a nice guy who really enjoys making movies. He just isn't nice enough to stop.

Would you think judging by the movie poster that the final epic battle between the evil king and Dolph Lundgren would take place in Dolph's bathroom? I can't get over that and the fact that the number 2 appears twice side by side in the title. 2+2=4. Does that mean Uwe Boll accidentally made IN THE NAME OF THE KING part 4 before making parts 3 and 4? You have to be careful when you put numbers in your titles. Oh, well. It could be worse. Remember 2 FAST 2 FURIOUS.

Jason

POINT BLANK...The one with Mickey Rourke.

2012-01-02T13:10:00.000-08:00

POINT BLANK is about a bunch of convicts who are freed by some dude with a rocket launcher while being transported across the country. Afterward they take over a nearby mall for some reason. I think the main bad guy, Howard, who planned the escape saw DIE HARD too many times and wanted to live out the remainder of his life pretending to be a gay Hans Gruber. Yes, Howard is gay. And yeah, I know that the mall is just a front for Howard's criminal empire so it would make sense to at least go there get a bunch of money. But then they just stand around waiting for a chopper. I don't think it was really necessary for them to kill a bunch of people and take over the joint. If they needed to escape then why didn't they escape WHEN THEY ESCAPED?!!!

Mickey Rourke plays Rudy Ray an ex-special forces, ex-Texas Ranger turn farmer (I think) who has a brother who was an inmate that helped orchestrate the escape. Rourke goes in by himself to either bring his brother out alive or put him down himself. I thought that would make for some pretty interesting drama but it doesn't pay off all too well. The problem is that this movie kind of drags and has a tendency to veer off the more interesting brothers on opposite sides of the law story and start developing the secondary characters who are a couple of convicts that like to tell their life stories so we can feel sorry for them. When the film starts to get going the movie stops so these other characters can blah-blah-blah the movie to death.

Even though this is Rourke's only lead role in an action movie I think POINT BLANK earns him the right to be in THE EXPENDABLES. Mickey Rourke is a good badass for the most part with his bulked out muscles and rough looking face. He is bigger than Rambo. Maybe too big. The problem is that his body looks as if it is packed with delicious meats. Watch out there is a giant ham running around in a combat vest shooting bad guys in the face and awkwardly dodging bullets! Rourke is intimidating as hell but sometimes during the shootouts and kung-fu take downs he seems uncomfortable in the role. Bruce Willis he is not. But Rourke has his own unique screen presence. He doesn't need to say a lot to get the point across that he can kick butt. And he is really good at shooting bad guys in the face especially when they are wearing ski masks.

The movie has some good moments. Danny Trejo almost steals the show as being one of the most badass crazy villains ever. The dude likes to kill and he loves cocaine. Maybe I should try cocaine too. He has two battles with Rourke in this and during one of them Trejo catches a bullet with his mouth!....Sort of. That isn't what kills him though just to show you how badass Trejo is in this. Rourke's brother Joe Ray is somewhat of a compelling character in this. He is not really a bad guy but somebody who is a reluctant pawn who has no choice but to side with Howard because he has been sentenced to death by the state and this is his last chance for a second life. It is interesting to see the two brothers avoid killing each other in the midst of all the chaos that is going on. If the movie would have focused more on these two the movie would have been great.

POINT BLANK is one of those movies that copies from other films big time. There is some John Woo style action moments lifted straight out of HARD BOILED. There is a Gatling gun that magically appears on the roof of the mall so this one guy can pretend he is the terminator from T2. He shoots a bunch of cop cars before getting made not alive anymore by a hail of gun fire. There is a moment when Joe Ray is wounded and just about to reach the end of this tunnel to freedom when he is shot in the back by Howard. The whole moment is filmed like Leon's death at the end of THE PROFESSIONAL. And obviously you can see the CON AIR and DIE HARD influence big time. The only thing missing is that Rudy Ray didn't have a cool catch phrase like John McClane did. Instead of saying "Yippie-Ki-Yay, Mother F*ckers", Rudy should be saying "Zippidy-Doo-Da, Dingalings". Yeah, that would be awesome.

Still despite the many weird scene transitions, odd music choices, Dutch angles galore and plot holes the size of my ego I got to say that I enjoyed this film. It may not be as well put together as most action films but it is as badass as it is bad. When people get shot they bleed all over the place. This isn't PG-13 action. Danny Trejo is a show stealer and the body count is high. I had a good time watching this one even though no one else in the room did. Whoops. POINT BLANK is a stupid movie but I'm a stupid guy so I liked it. THE END.

Jason

2012 is the year of THE EXPENDABLES 2!!!

2011-12-31T22:03:00.000-08:00

I know there are a lot of big movies coming out in 2012. You have THE AVENGERS, THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, WRATH OF THE TITANS, THE HOBBIT, ALIEN PREQUEL #3 and so forth. But for me nothing is bigger than THE EXPENDABLES part 2. Seeing almost all the big action stars from the eighties together in one film is too epic. I am excited. The teaser trailer actually shows Arnold and Willis running around with guns. This time they aren't just standing around and talking. The most intriguing thing of all is that Chuck 'FREAKIN' Norris makes an appearance and he too is armed to the beard. He probably won't do much but I can't help but wonder what his role is. The dude punched Bruce Lee in the face in WAY OF THE DRAGON. If you think about it Norris was the first modern action hero. Before him there were only tough guy heroes like Eastwood and Wayne. Nowadays we ain't got squat!

The eighties created Stallone, Willis, Van Damme, and the a biggest one of all Schwarzenegger. Movies like COMMANDO, ROBOCOP, PREDATOR, RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART 2, DIE HARD and CYBORG (That's right I love CYBORG) brought big body counts and simple stories that delivered on what they promised. KICKASSNESS! Then the nineties came and the big body counts were replaced by big budget special effects, jumping out of the way of dangerous stuff action, watered down PG-13 blandness and JUNIOR. Our big movie stars like Van Damme and Seagal went straight to video with not so great convoluted stories of confusion trying hard to be 'smart'. I couldn't believe it when I saw Seagal's THE PATRIOT sitting on the store shelf without a theatrical release. I knew the times were changing and so was I. While American action movie plots revolved around a bunch of bad guys taking over a place and only one man can stop them mumbo-jumbo (AKA the DIE HARD FORMULA) John Woo was over seas making character driven bullet-fests that strangely show the ugliness of violence filmed like beautiful dance numbers. He directed action movies the way I played with my G.I. Joes back in the day. So I moved on to films like HARD BOILED and THE KILLER dabbling for a short time in Hong Kong martial art films mostly staring Jet Li. The Internet gave me access to a plethora of foreign action films that were far superior in the 'action' category than what was coming out in America in the last twenty years. Thankfully though Stallone has brought most of the old badasses together again to reclaim some of that lost glory but this time with less Hollywood flare and more tough guy grit. I missed them all and I cannot wait for August to come. They got just about everybody. I think the only one they are missing is Seagal. Get with the times, Seagal.

Anyhoo I have decided to post a bunch of reviews of some of my favorite (or not so favorite) films from the cast of both EXPENDABLE movies throughout the coming months. It all depends on how unlazy I get. I will most likely be reviewing lesser known films from the likes of Norris and Scott Adkins but I think I will do some of the bigger ones like PREDATOR and COMMANDO as well. Expect a lot of bad analogies, mixed with some nerfed curse words and blander than bland reviews cuz that's the way I roll, Mutha Truckas,

Jason

SUPER 8 SUPER SUCKS!

2011-12-20T07:48:00.000-08:00

Maybe that is being a little harsh. I will take that title back slightly and say that SUPER 8 is super okay. Abrams tries to catch the same cinematic magic that E.T. delivered back in the awesome 80's with a story about a boy and an alien but this time there are huge explosions, jumping out of the way of stuff action pieces and enough lens flares to make even Michael Bay scratch his head. The characters are likable yet mostly forgettable. The story is character driven but takes the focus a little too much away from the mystery about the alien. There is no connection with the main character and the supposed evil monster run amok. Well I guess there is a little connection at the end with the alien, but there is touching involved. That's not good.

So the story revolves around this boy named Joe Lamb whose mother died in an accident at a steel mill or factory or whatever. Apparently the boy's mother took a shift from a guy who called in because he was too hung over. This causes a rift between the boy's father and the guy who was suppose to work that fateful day. The guy has a daughter named Alice but neither father wants the boy or the girl to hang out together because seeing each other's kids reminds them of painful memories. But Joe and Alice hang out together anyway while helping their friend film his zombie movie. Oh! And there is an alien running around killing people.

I did enjoy the back story of Joe Lamb and how the death of his mother effects his life but SUPER 8 focuses way too much time on that and almost forgets about the dang alien. The kids are shooting a zombie movie with Super 8 film. The whole point of calling the movie SUPER 8 is because they capture the alien escaping a wrecked train on film. But they don't discover that until about an hour or more into the movie. By that time we already know it is an alien running around. Capturing the creature on film only helps a little at the end to help convince some other characters like the dad that there is a monster on the loose. By this time in the film everyone should know because its running around creating all kinds of strange shenanigans. The fact that the monster is caught of film is almost completely meaningless. But how else are they going to call the movie SUPER 8?

Worse of all this is suppose to be some kind of weird homage to E.T. or something. At the movie's core SUPER 8 is about a boy and his alien. This time however the small friendly E.T. is replaced by a giant pissed off alien that looks like freakin Megatron from the TRANSFORMERS movies. The alien is good except the evil military caught it back in the sixties and held it prisoner. Now it thinks all people are bad. Then at the end after we see it kill a couple of innocent people the boy makes friends with it and then the alien's ship magically builds itself from common everyday junk allowing the alien to finally escape into space. I guess we are suppose to feel sympathy for the alien but 1.) like Megatron it kills people and 2.) it looks like Megatron. I can't feel sorry for that. SUPER 8 pays more homages to the recently released TRANSFORMERS movies than it does E.T.

SUPER 8 isn't all bad but it doesn't quite hit the mark. The movie is slow and tries to be funny but mostly it is all stuff you have seen before. I feel like the movie tries too hard to be "Speilbergian". Speilberg made larger than life movies that pushed the boundaries of special effects and what could be put to film. But they had great characters that were brought to life effortlessly through the natural progression of the story. Nowadays everything is done with computers and character development is forced with cliched sad back stories. Everything in E.T. looked or felt real. SUPER 8 is too artificial. I would say that SUPER 8 has heart. Its just that it is a high tech artificial heart that can transform into a handgun or tank.

Jason

My interview with film maker Jason Brasier writer and director of DRIFTER: BROKEN ROAD!!!

2011-12-14T10:03:00.000-08:00

Without giving too much away what is the story of DRIFTER: BROKEN ROAD?

Five years after a brutal second civil war, a figure known as Drifter befriends the owners of a trading post on her trail to revenge.

Who is the Drifter and who plays her?

Formerly with the FBI, the Drifter is skilled in hand-to-hand combat as well as firearms. During the onset of the Second Civil War, she fought to preserve the U.S. government. Circumstances pushed her away and she joined the ranks of the Loudon Rangers, a militia group in Virginia for a short time before starting her journey west. She is played by Vanessa Leinani.

How did you discover Vanessa Leinani?

Vanessa actually found me, if memory serves me correctly. She had moved to the area a few years back and was looking for local filmmakers and actors. She was wanting to get involved in productions.

What does the 'BROKEN ROAD' mean to the story?

I think the title 'Broken Road' is very symbolic for the entire story. For me its about being on the right path and then you run into road construction or in this case some demolition. The story takes place after a second civil war. I wanted to avoid the whole post apocalyptic angle. What I mean by that is, no nuclear bombs or fallout. The world of Drifter takes place in a society torn apart by itself.

Think of it like this. New roads and highways look great when they are built. They can last forever if taken care of. Sure there will be some bumps along the way, but in the end, if you don't fix and keep everything up to date over time, a road that's been traveled over and over again becomes weathered, beaten, cracked, and over time, not safe to drive. This is the world of Drifter and can also be applied to each character in the story.

When do we get to see DRIFTER: BROKEN ROAD?

March 2012

Are there any movies or directors that have influenced your directing or writing style?

John Carpenter is the man who inspired me to pick up a camera and make a movie. Every time I saw one of his films, I could always tell, this guy is just having fun telling a good scary story. That's what I wanted to achieve. Telling stories cinematically and just having fun doing it. From there, Sam Raimi, Quentin Tarantino, Clint Eastwood, and Sergio Leone became huge influences. The first films I can remember that really influenced me at an early age were, Star Wars: A New Hope, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and John Carpenter's The Fog.

Top Influences: 1. John Carpenter, 2. Sam Raimi, 3. Quentin Tarantino, 4. Roger Corman, 5. Sergio Leone, 6. JJ Abrams, 7. Joss Whedon, 8. Clint Eastwood, 9. Yimou Zhang, 10. John Woo.

How long did it take to film BROKEN ROAD?

We shot Broken Road at a breakneck pace over a total of 8 days.

Where did you film?

We filmed at a location 35 minutes past Buffalo, Missouri.

What are your plans for the Drifter in the future?

I have Drifter's journey mapped out as an online trilogy. Broken Road is just the stepping stone on that journey.

Do you have a favorite film?

TOP 12:

1. Doctor Zhivago, 2. Once Upon a Time in the West, 3. Creature from the Black Lagoon, 4. The Hustler, 5. Indiana Jones Trilogy, 6. Lord of the Rings, 7. Cape Fear (1962), 8. The Empire Strikes Back, 9. Young Mr. Lincoln, 10. Rio Bravo, 11. High Plains Drifter, 12. Star Trek 6: The Undiscovered Country.

Have you seen THE GREAT SILENCE yet?

I have not. It is on my list of films to watch

Thanks for you time, Mr. Brasier.

Jason

Check out more here at Drifterseries.com.

CONAN THE BARBARIAN 3D IS A STUPID POO-POO PANTS OF A MOVIE!

2011-12-13T02:43:00.000-08:00

CONAN THE BARBARIAN 3D is not a remake of the original CONAN film. CONAN 3D is a comic book movie. With that said I would also like to say that this is a terrible comic book movie that rips off PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN, PRINCE OF PERSIA, LORD OF THE RINGS, THE NEW CLASH OF THE TITANS and some other crap I suppose. CONAN 3D tries to be epic with elaborate sets and well detailed costumes but everything comes across as flat and uninteresting. The story is sloppy and rushed. The characters are small and insignificant taking a back seat to all the violence and buckets of blood. The movie borrows liberally from other films big time pretending we the audience have never been to a Hollywood blockbuster before. We are not that stupid......Well I am. I bought this movie on blu-ray. Whoops.

CONAN 3D starts off with this LORD OF THE RINGS story about a powerful wizard that had a crown made of the skulls of kings. Then all these barbarians fought back and destroyed the crown and divided the pieces throughout the world. So just replace the word "ring" with the word "crown". One crown to rule them all blah-blah-crap. Then we have a scene where Conan is born on the battlefield. It is an embarrassing scene that tries to stress how badass Conan is. Of course being born in battle means he will be the ultimate badass just like Leatherface from TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: THE BEGINNING will be a chainsaw maniac obsessed with cutting things up because he was born in a slaughter house. Bravo. What brilliant imagination. (hurl) At this point in the movie I couldn't help but think I was watching something directed by Uwe Boll. It just has that awkward misses the point feel to it. The acting is bad. The story is lifted straight off of better movies. You can tell that the film is hiding the weak script behind the the curtains of blood that flows about from the never ending supply of bad guys. Conan's father is killed by Stephen Lang who seeks the pieces of the crown. Then Conan spends his life living like a pirate until he decides to go and kill the dude who killed his father. Oh, and there is a love story about a virgin who has the power in her blood to resurrect Stephen Lang's dead wife. Or something like that.

Overall the film is a rush job with no time spent to develop the characters. Conan the character is a made for t.v. personality not straying too far from a Duncan McCleod blandness. Sure Conan looks big and mean and does the twirly sword nerdery that the nerds love but when he speaks he comes off more like a football linebacker who somehow went back in time to the dark ages and not being smart enough to do anything else is forced to live his life like a barbarian which suits him just fine. This Conan dumb jock but good with the ladies personality doesn't fit into the dark violent world the movie takes place in. He is almost too politically correct. He frees a bunch of slaves saying "No man should live in chains" but why would he think that. He is a barbarian/pirate type person. Last time I checked they didn't give a crapola about anybody. Why would Conan? Oh, I guess because the writers said so. The original Conan didn't speak much but we learn a lot about his character based on his actions. Often the secondary characters would explain Conan's actions because Conan would not. That fits his character. There was thought put into the original Conan. Not every action has to be fully explained by the main character. Its called good writing.

CONAN 3D has a lot of scenes all of which fly by so fast that you never really know what is going on. They almost all end with some bad guys showing up and getting stabbed, sliced and made not alive anymore. The end fight with Stephen Lang is particularly epic in it's stupidity. Conan and he are doing a high wire act standing on a wheel balancing over deep drop into lava or something. They fight for like twenty minutes through Stephen's evil temple. Suddenly for no reason the temple starts to collapse. I don't think the movie explains why the temple decides to fall apart. I think the writer thought that the temple falling on top of them would make the action more exciting. Spoiler alert! It doesn't. Not every final battle has to take place in a place where a bunch of crazy crap happening all over the place.

It is sad at this day and age with the tools we have to make the greatest looking movies ever yet we still have junk like CONAN 3D. It looks like a big Hollywood movie with a bunch of B-Movie actors. What it doesn't look like is the story of a young boy who grows up in a violent world as a barbarian to one day become king. The worst thing about this movie is how boring it was. Not once did I find myself getting involved with the story. It was just a bunch of stuff that happened and who cared. The music wasn't even memorable. Remember the original Conan? The large, loud and triumphant orchestra boomed during the battles and set the epic mood of the film. It was music that stayed with you and brought an adrenaline rush to the movie. Its a smarter more detailed film than people give it credit for. Heck, even the nudity in CONAN 3D is boring. It's there but you have to look really hard to see it. You shouldn't have to do that.

Maybe if you are like fifteen and haven't watched a lot of movies and you think the STAR WARS PREQUELS are better than the originals then you might actually like CONAN 3D. Its got blood and swords and armor and medieval times stuff and big special effects. It is all familiar and it shouldn't challenge your young mushy minds. If you like boring and stupid and HIGHLANDER movies then I recommend. Otherwise stick to the original.

Jason

VOTE FOR IZOMBIE AND THE HORROR BLOGGER ALLIANCE!!!

2011-12-08T10:31:00.000-08:00

Click here and vote for IZOMBIE for BEST HORROR BLOG and THE HORROR BLOGGER ALLIANCE for the GOLD AWARD! The 411 MOVIE NEWS BLOG has a bunch of awards for best blogs and stuff. Izombie has been nominated for two! Izombie has done a fantastic job uniting the legions of horror blogs together with THE HORROR BLOGGER ALLIANCE making it easier for people like me to find countless opinions on horror films. Thanks for the convenience. I enjoy reading other's thoughts on movies. I always make it a point everyday to check out his site RETRO-ZOMBIE which is about zombies and zombie stuff. The guy loves zombies even more than I do and he deserves to win.

Jason

VIDEO DEMONS DO PSYCHOTOWN: Cool title that has nothing to do with the movie.

2011-11-29T07:13:00.000-08:00

I don't know who that guy is busting through the t.v. screen or why he would decide to start eating VHS tapes and rudely impose himself onto other peoples' movie covers. He is not in this movie whatsoever but if you do see him out in public please call the local authorities. He needs immediate medical attention and years and years of psychological help.

Anyhoo, when you see a title as crazy as VIDEO DEMONS DO PSYCHOTOWN what kind of crazy weird things do you imagine happening in a film called that? Judging by the cover I would think that the story would revolve around some lawless city run by roaming gangs of 80's style street punks waring against each other until some street trash crazy person that loves to eat video cassettes finds and plugs in a VCR that came straight from Hell unleashing demons of the "man in a rubber suit" variety upon the damned citizens of PSYCHOTOWN. Then the rest of the movie would be the survivors trying to get out of their criminal paradise, At least that is what I would think would happen in a movie with such a terrific title. No, this movie has nothing to do with the title. I call that flagrant false advertising.

VIDEO DEMONS DO PSYCHOTOWN is instead about two vanilla boring college yuppies filming a class project about the death of a local rich guy who lives in a town where apparently everyone is a psychic and really old. That's right, old people. There are no "Video Demons" and no "Psychotown". I guess when the distribution company TROMA decided to retitle the film they thought that the word "Psycho" is similar in meaning to the word "Psychic". This movie is really boring, folks. The one murder that happens in the movie is boring, the two or three sex scenes are boring, and the finale is boring. As a whole I think the movie is suppose to be a slasher flick with a killer lurking in the shadows in a yellow rain coat. The girl college yuppie is apparently a super psychic that the townsfolk fear but nothing comes from that. The movie just kind of plods along with scene after scene of our two heroes looking at t.v. monitors editing their dang documentary for school. They filmed like two scenes and you get to see those scenes over and over again. Then this ghost shows up through the t.v. showing how the old guy died. If that didn't happen the two yuppies would never have figured out what happened. Heck, I still don't know what happened and I watched the freakin movie.

The killer ends up being some old lady that I think was running an antique store. Apparently she killed the rich old guy that ran the town. Maybe the movie explains why but I can't remember. After about thirty minutes of blandtasticness my mind shifted into neutral. The killer is probably the worst killer in the history of killers. She kills some maintenance guy for maybe talking too much even though I don't think he or any of the towns people would know that she murdered the old rich guy. At the end another college friend shows up and almost gets killed by the old slasher lady. You would think that this character would get killed because why have him in the movie if he isn't there to get stabbed repeatedly in the face. He doesn't do anything so why not kill him in a movie that is suppose to be a sort of mystery slasher flick. You need people to get killed in not nice ways if you are going to make a slasher flick, Movie. That is the whole point of a slasher flick! Geeze.

There really isn't a whole lot to talk about with this movie. It's boring and none of it makes sense. I don't remember but it looks like the movie was filmed in the middle of Kansas where nothing exists (so I'm told) so it should come as no surprise that nothing happens in this movie. I could write pages on what the movie should be based on the title. This movie is so bad that it makes me want to eat VHS tapes and smash my face into television sets. Wait! I think I just explained what the cover means. Bravo, VIDEO DEMONS DO PSYCHOTOWN. Bravo.

Jason

THE DEVIL'S REJECTS

2011-11-07T08:51:00.000-08:00

Almost an apology for HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES, THE DEVIL'S REJECTS radically changes everything that was connected to part 1. The characters that are back from the original have been altered along with their relationships with each other. The style of the film is completely different. It's really more like an extremely violent western similar to the Italian Western CUT THROATS NINE. Being a huge fan of HOUSE I was eagerly waiting the somewhat delayed DEVIL'S. I read everything I could find on the Internet. I studied every article in FANGORIA. The news was that this was a much more realistic darker sequel. Gone were the colorful monsters like Dr. Satan and the Professor because they didn't fit into this new more realistic darker reality. This wasn't going to have the humor of the original. No laughs here. I'll be honest. I was a little apprehensive seeing this film. How could DEVIL'S be a darker film? I was nervous as I was watching the movie in the theater fearful of what the more realistic violence will do to my fragile little mind. But then some of the characters on screen started talking about STAR WARS and my fears dissipated. Hey, Zombie! This ain't freakin CLERKS!

So THE DEVIL'S REJECTS starts off with some words telling us about Sheriff Wydell doing a "search and destroy" mission on the Firefly family's home. I guess "search and destroy" means following police procedure, firing back when fired upon, arresting suspects and collecting evidence to use in a criminal trial long down the road. Hmm...The term "search and destroy" probably sounded better when it was written in the script. The reason Wydell is there is because................I don't know. We are never told why Wydell would be compelled to raid the house. What evidence does he have to go to that house? The film gets a little ahead of itself. Baby and Otis escape and spend most of the movie terrorizing a country music singing group in a motel waiting for Captain Spaulding who is now Baby's dad. Wydell's mind unhinges as he breaks the law with his murderous rage to hunt and kill the Rejects.

The great contradiction of this film is the portrayal of the Firefly family. The first half of this film takes place in a hotel room. Baby and Otis spend much of the film's run time terrorizing the country music folks. They beat, molest, rape, humiliate and ultimately murder the singing group. This whole part of the movie has nothing to do with anything except to pass the time. It is suppose to show how horrible Otis and Baby are. We are suppose to sympathize with the singers cringing in discomfort at the horrible way they are treated. Otis is compelling even though his character is way more granola than his previous incarnation in HOUSE. He is less artsy fartsy and more FREEBIRD!!!! Baby comes off more as an actress who is in this film because she is married to the director. Her acting is rather uneven. Sometimes she is passable other times her lines come out forced and unconvincing. After spending SO MUCH TIME murdering these people Spaulding shows up and suddenly the film magically changes these murderous evil doers to lovable, "keep on truckin" sympathetic heroes. They have a funny argument debating whether or not to stop for freakin ice cream. Did they pay for that ice cream? Hey the law is after us! Let us stop and risk getting shot in the face by the cops so we can get TOOTY-FREAKIN-FRUITY! That makes sense. Then at the moment they are about to die at the end we are treated to family home movies of the three of them prancing around in an open field under the sunshine being happy and appreciating all of life's wonderful mysteries. Does that sound like the bastards we just spent the last seventy minutes with? THE DEVIL'S REJECTS has the audacity to invoke sympathy for killers. That is a hard thing to do and requires a well told story that is able to show both the good and the bad of a character through the course of the story.

Take for example THE WILD BUNCH. Peckinpah's story of aging outlaws sticking together during the end of their era never apologizes for their violent behavior. Yet at the end when they have all been gunned down by the Mexican army there is a sense of loss. We miss them even though they are bad men. The movie presents us with well rounded characters that have a wide range behaviors. They can stick together out of loyalty being honorable men yet able to gun down an unarmed civilian for getting in the way. It takes skill to tell a story where the outlaws are the protagonists. THE DEVIL'S REJECTS simply starts out like torture porn but then changes mood entirely remembering all too late that we the audience have to feel something for these horrible horrible Earth monsters in order for the ending to have an emotional impact. If you can't get the audience to like them then just add a Lynard Skynard song to let them know that they should be feeling sad.

THE DEVIL'S REJECTS didn't leave the impact on me that HOUSE did. HOUSE was something I had never seen before. It's an intense and always interesting film. I wasn't sure where the film was taking me and I wasn't sure I wanted to know. DEVIL'S just made me feel "meh". It wasn't terrible but it wasn't great which is what you expect from the mind of a great man. The sequel is deserted and dry but that isn't a terrible thing. It works with the American Western theme for the film. But I didn't get as involved with this one. With the exception of the strong characters like WydellSpaulding and his brother Charlie most of this film was forgettable. Not much drew me into this film. Why? Maybe it's because a large portion of the movie takes place in a motel room. That's not very interesting to look at. On the DVD there is a four hour documentary of Zombie explaining how he wants to make everything as uninteresting as possible to avoid the big action Hollywood movie. The more actiony parts of the REJECTS like the raid on the farm and the end shoot out Lynard Skynard music video are all shot with as little visual stimuli as possible. The camera shakes and moves around too much almost like it films around the action. Its like he is trying to not be Michael Bay by filming like Michael Bay. Also I would like to point out that Zombie talks about wigs in old movies on the documentary and how if they didn't look real that this would take him out of the movie completely. He couldn't get over fake looking wigs. That's funny because there is a lot of CGI blood in DEVIL's which contrasts big time against the realistic look. People bleed cartoons big time in this one. Should that take me out of the film?

THE DEVIL'S REJECTS tries to be smart when it shouldn't. The idea is that Sheriff Wydell is just as evil as the Rejects because he plans on killing them outside the law. Wydell is suppose to be a villain. He seems to be enjoying the hunt. That's a cool idea. It takes a maniac to kill a maniac or whatever but there is a difference between he and they. WYDELL DOESN'T GO AROUND AND KILL INNOCENT PEOPLE! If they were going to use that angle then there should have been a part where Wydell actually killed someone innocent that got in his way. But they don't. Spaulding just says "He is like us" and that's it. I don't see how. He kills murderers to stop murderers. The Fireflys kill because they enjoy it. That's a difference, folks. I will say Forsythe is awesome in this movie. He carries this film as his character goes off the reservation. He never should have died. The film deflates a bit the second he is quickly killed. His death is weak sauce. There was no poetry to it. He gets his neck snapped and that is it. Kind of a blah death for the film's strongest character. A great villain deserves a great villain's death. Oh, yea I forgot. This film is suppose to make things uninteresting on purpose. Sigh.........

I know I just wrote a bunch of crap-ola crap-ola-ing all over this film but I do like it. DEVIL'S is a good film. The idea of taking these characters and putting them into a modern western is wonderful unique approach to a sequel. I happen to like westerns. They are my fave. The problem is that too many regard DEVIL'S as the better film of the two and I don't see why. I have a feeling that they (the nerd-Os) want to like Zombie's film work because his music is so awesome. HOUSE may have been too much for them with it's strange experimental flashy style. The movie throws a lot at the audience visually almost all at once but DEVIL'S does the opposite. It almost doesn't want to show anything at all. American audiences can relate more to that because they tend to want movies to be as realistic as possible. It's suppose to be a darker film yet the dialogue is funnier than the first film. That doesn't make sense. The Kentucky Fried dialogue is the only thing in excess from the original. Otherwise everything from the first movie is stripped away leaving us with a barren dry film that is too barren and too dry. Don't get me started on the HALLOWEEN movies.

Jason

HOUSE OF 1OOO CORPSES: KENTUCKY FRIED HORROR AT ITS BEST!

2011-10-27T04:12:00.000-07:00

HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES is a dark but extremely colorful mental disorder of a horror film and I mean that as a sincere complement. It's filmed like a really long Rob Zombie music video which makes sense since he filmed the dang thing. While it is one of the first of the new wave of TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE homages it at least separates itself from the pack with Zombie's unique imagination and over the top characters and incredibly profane Kentucky fried dialogue. Best of all this is Zombie's only work (as of now) that doesn't contradict itself. What do I mean by that? Well all I can say is wait until my review of DEVIL'S REJECTS. Right now I want to be positive and heap a bunch of praise on this underrated classic.

HOUSE OF A 1000 CORPSES is about four young adults who while researching roadside attractions across America become victims of a family of crazies out in the country side on Halloween. Immediately the film opens with a t.v. show monster movie marathon hosted by Dr. Wolfenstein. As the movie goes on clips from several classic horror films cut into the movie adding a sense of horror culture that is lacking in almost all horror films nowadays. I love classic horror and mixing it with the modern even though the setting takes place in the 70s is brilliant. The old Universal films that mostly are played during October have become a tradition of American Halloween. Those films bring up memories of past childhood Halloweens and HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES gets that.

The cast is top notch with veteran actors like Sid Haig, Karen Black, and Bill Mosely providing crazy whacked out performances. I have no idea what Bill is saying in this movie. All I know is that he scares the crap out of me in this. In real life he is a real cool guy and he signed both my DVDs of HOUSE and DEVIL'S. Same thing with Sid Haig and his Captain Spaulding character. He is one intense clown. Spaulding is the kind of character that you kind of want to stay on his good side. The acting is perfect across the board. No complaints there.

This is a much darker film. It is WAAAAY(!) darker than the happy sunny good times hairy balls rockin n roll DEVIL'S REJECTS. There is a good amount of humor here but all of it has a sinister edge to it. Its not meant to be laugh out loud hilarious. Its there to keep the film from being a constant downer. Most horror makers keep the humor out because they believe that makes their films more "extreme". They don't realize that the tone of a story needs to go up and down and not just down where it becomes boring and bleak. HOUSE has those elements of torture porn and seventies style heroics where the people who come and save the day end up dead leaving no hope for the survivors which is all we have seen before. But then the movie gets a little more darker with the introduction of the Professor an axe wielding maniac and Dr. Satan who looks like a de-feathered vulture with a breathing mask. This film has monsters and crazy zombie people. These elements show a strong sense of imagination. HOUSE gives us a lot to look at and then it gives us a little more with these characters. They both are a couple of instant horror icons.

There is a mix of crazy images, psychedelic dream sequences and film negative photography that transitions the scenes of the movie. Most of the time scenes will have a bunch of crazy crap cut into the scene just for kicks. I think this is why American audiences tune out on this movie. It maybe a little too much madness for them. Maybe it is a little much. Maybe Zombie isn't confident with what is happening on screen to create interest so he puts a bunch of mindless stuff into the moments. I think it works. It is a little too much like a music video but I expect madness from a movie about madness. Zombie is best at showing death in his films. Every time you see a dead body in a movie of his it looks like a real dead body. He makes the image as uncomfortable as possible. He gets the message of the awfulness of death. But we are suppose to root for the bad guys?

The one thing I don't like about HOUSE is the ending. This a movie where the characters go through such extremes that one of them needs to make it out. At least that would make the beginning of DEVIL'S REJECTS make sense. How did those cops know about what was going on in that farmhouse to begin with? I am not a big believer in Zombie's idea of the monsters being the heroes. I am a firm believer that someone needs to survive otherwise everything that happens if fruitless. They all might as well have died at the beginning and save us all some time. I don't like the fact that the girl gets away only to end up back in the chair of Dr. Satan. That blows big time. I want to see the monsters get killed in gruesome monster deaths. Horror makers always forget that the best part of a classic monster movie is when the monster melts, burns, gets chopped up or whatever. Maybe it was a dream that she got away. She thinks she gets away with Spaulding showing up and giving her a ride only to have Otis in the back seat with a knife stabbing her in the back only to wake up in a real life nightmare. I wonder.

Jason

LAST OF THE LIVING: The movie that doesn't want to die....

2011-10-25T04:53:00.000-07:00

In all honesty I really liked LAST OF THE LIVING. It's kind of funny, the characters are kind of interesting and the overall story concept is kind of unique. Yeah, that is quite a few "kind ofs", isn't it? I guess I can't really recommend this movie. That really sucks because there is talent here. There is a spark of creativity. The problem is that the whole film isn't as good as it thinks it is.

The story is about three dudes who are the last of the living. They spend the majority of the movie living their daily lives in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. They go to the store, watch t.v. and play video games. Apparently during a zombie apocalypse the electrical grid is just fine. That is very fortunate for our heroes. When they get bored of the mansion they are squatting in they move to a new one. This is where the movie decides to introduce a plot into the mix to try to keep our attention about a female scientist trying to get blood from a zombie to a research facility on an island.

This movie has its humorous moments. Some of the dialogue is witty or at least amusing. There is a lot of great music spread throughout the film giving you hope that the movie will get better. But it doesn't. The energy of the film kind of plateaus and then towards the end descends into fart jokes and one extremely weak ending. The movie just stops. Things get kind of crazy at the end there and the movie decides to not go on anymore leaving the audience with that "WTF WAS THAT!" feeling in their gut. LAST OF THE LIVING doesn't seem to be a completed film. It probably needed to go through a few more script changes before anything was put to film. It wants to be the New Zealand SHAUN OF THE DEAD but it poops out. The whole movie seems under developed.

For a low budget movie, LAST OF THE LIVING tries to entertain but at 87 minutes of run time the movie just drags and drags and drags and they haven't even gotten to the island yet. You get tired of the film about halfway through when you realize that nothing is happening quickly at all. Actually by the end you can forgive the abrupt mindless ending because at least the movie is over. The quirky shenanigans of our heroes is not enough to keep your interest. The film has a sickly green tint to it that mucks up the photography lessening the value of the cinematography making everything look boring.

I guess if you like zombie movies and can forgive a lot of it's short comings then I can somewhat kind of sort of recommend this rip off of SHAUN OF THE DEAD. Just don't be expecting to hang a poster of this one on your wall in your parents basement anytime soon, Nerd-Os.

Jason

THE WILD HUNT is TERRIFIC!!!

2011-10-19T08:01:00.000-07:00

THE WILD HUNT is not a horror movie but it is kind of close. Its a serious film about the dangers of blurring the line between fantasy and reality. I didn't know much about this film when I bought it. All I knew is that it was a psychological thriller about LARPERS. We horror geeks know that the term "psychological thriller" means boring but us judgemental jerks who fear things we don't understand know that "LARPERS" means hilarious. How can you make a serious film about grown ups playing live action role play? I mean lets face it, 100% of us would have taken the material and push it to more of a comedy film than dark relationship drama turned tragedy. I know I would. But what we would have done is completely ruin a truly unique story that is nearly impossible to predict. The originality would be ruined forever. What I am saying folks is that this is a story I really haven't seen before or at least presented in this way in this setting.

Erik is a young man who takes care of his sick father. His relationship with his girlfriend, Lyn is deteriorating. He loves her but she wants something more than a burned out life with Erik. Basically she is replacing their relationship with Live Action Role Play. She leaves him at home and goes and spends weekends in the woods at some super elaborate LARPING camp that has castles and huts and viking ships and other medieval times stuff. They go all out over there which only adds to the reality of their fantasy. Lyn is a princess in LARPING TOWN (which is what I call the place) and she enjoys the attention she gets especially from the Shaman who is like a bad guy who is the leader of some nomadic tribe. In the LARPING world she is his captive and she is a very important part of a ceremony called THE WILD HUNT. Unfortunately for Erik, Lyn is a woman and doesn't like to give definitive answers on the status of their relationship. Gee, that kind of sounds familiar. He fears that she is cheating on him with the other nerds so he goes on his own personal weekend quest to find her and doing so leads to a series of events that lead to bloodshed. Its good stuff is all I can say.

With the color drained out of the THE WILD HUNT leaving only dominate white and grey colors I kind of thought that this was going to be a slow bleak film. This was going to be one mean spirited hell of a film but it isn't. While there isn't much color to the picture quality THE WILD HUNT shines with interesting colorful characters. You have a nerdy jerk king, a ref dressed like a fairy, an evil shaman, a guy dressed in full knight in shiny armor who gets winded from running around in a metal suit and best of all Erik's older brother Bjorn. Bjorn is a legend in the LARPING community. Bjorn is wonderful. He is so full of life and thunder. He helps Erik get his girl back through the rules of LARPING. He is a fun and tragic character too. Even when things are getting serious around him he still tries everyway he can to bend what is happening around him to fit into his overactive imagination. He doesn't want the fantasy to be interrupted. When things get really bad we see how much of a real hero he isn't when his brother needs his help.

The Shaman is just a guy trying to keep up the fantasy too. He is just like Bjorn but isn't as over the top. The Shaman doesn't play the over the top loud mouth villain. He is much more subtle to the point of tricking Lyn into thinking she is about to be murdered for the Wild Hunt. You can see him test the line between real and fantasy. When the good guys bend the rules to steal Lyn it is he who goes off the reservation. He and his clan all take things way too far and become the characters for real. Horror happens. What is really neat is when he realizes what he has done and becomes himself again. You can see that he knows he has gone too far and suffers the consequences losing everything that he has fought for.

The movie isn't completely dark and gloomy. The film recognizes the silliness of what these grown ups are doing. There are comedic moment throughout the film. It is a funny movie at times. The story builds and builds and doesn't become a simple dumb thrill ride about two people running from some nerds that have gone crazy from playing LARPING. THE WILD HUNT is one of the smartest films I have seen in a long time. The movie makes me think. And the more I think about this film the more I love it. With the exception of the bleak cinematography I really don't have any gripes about this film. Its darn good stuff.

Could something like this happen in real life? Normally I would say, no. But then when I think back on my time playing CALL OF DUTY I realize that I never played an online match without a bunch of people "rage quitting". You know that most people who play these games are a bunch of nerd-os. And you know that a lot of them play LARPNG stuff. My question is this. What do these rage quitters do when they can't rage quit out of LARPING? Lesson learned: Don't trust a nerd. THE END.

Jason

FLIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD

2011-10-16T07:41:00.000-07:00

FLIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD................I'm just going to use my imagination really really hard and pretend that the creators didn't in some way try to cash in on the not-so-successful SNAKES ON A PLANE hype that lasted about ten seconds. The reason why I say that is because I ended up really liking FOTLD. For a low budget crappy movie this is one isn't that bad. It has a good sense of humor and there is a high level of excitement to the film. It doesn't get bogged down in melodrama of overly long character development blah-blah-blah. Its about zombies on a plane and what you do when you have zombies on a plane. You shoot them in the face.....and the nuts apparently.

There are some recognizable faces and some generally good performances sprinkled throughout the film to keep the bad performances at bay. Remember the bad guy from KINDERGARTEN COP? Guess what. He is one of the heroes in FOTLD. (Along with some guy who looks like Nathan Fillion's older brother.) That is pretty cool, eh? And yes, I do consider his performance good. While most of the film is limited to interiors of a plane the movie still manages to not look boring or stale thanks to a great use of color and some creative camera angles. Yeah, they do use some of the same creative camera angles a little too much but that is a small complaint and only noticed by people who have too much time on their hands to notice such trivial things. All I am saying is that you get to see a lot of people get pulled down the same hole in the floor over and over again.

As far as zombie carnage goes there is a lot of it. Zombies are everywhere. They crawl through vents, smash through mirrors, claw through the floor. One takes down a fighter jet! People are bitten and quite often find themselves torn to pieces in their seats. This not a plane you want to be on, folks. Thankfully there are a couple of cool dudes whose jobs require them to carry guns wherever they go to shoot the zombies for our entertainment. They do kill a lot of zombies which is the biggest reason why I like this film.

I don't really have a lot to say about FLIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. (Because I am a terrible writer. Hee-Hee!) I was just surprised at how much I ended up liking the film. Its a crazy film but it doesn't go shark-jumping-out-of-the-ocean-and-eats-a-jumbo-jet-Syfy-Channel crazy or giant-snake-eats-an-entire-train crazy. I guess it comes close a couple of times with the fighter jet and all. The movie is slightly creative enough not to call itself ZOMBIES ON A PLANE. If you are big into zombie films give this one a try you might just agree with me for once. I do believe that this is probably the first zombie movie where a zombie dies by being shot in the balls. Think about it. Doesn't it make more sense to shoot a male zombie in the junk than in the head. I mean we are suppose to shoot them where their brains are, right?

Jason

JASON X: AIN'T TECHNOLOGY A BITCH!

2011-10-14T08:05:00.000-07:00

I guess when you run out of ideas for your slasher series you send them into space. Just ask Pinhead and the Leprechaun. But that doesn't mean that JASON X sucks. You call it a dumb slasher movie in space but think about it. ITS A DUMB SLASHER MOVIE IN SPACE! How cool is that? And it features the most badass slasher of them all Jason 'Will You Die Already' Vorhees. This is a fun, badass, highly creative monster flick and it needs to be acknowledged as so. We see Jason fight soldiers, horny teens, a nerdy robot with boobs, space marines, one astronaut, and David Cronenberg! Think about that too. David Cronenberg is in a FRIDAY THE 13TH film!

I am just going to assume that they took a rejected script for a FRIDAY THE 13TH film and changed the word "camp" to "space ship". Jason kills people on a space ship instead of Camp Crystal Lake is the story. But there is more of a creative mind put to the making of this film. JASON X makes fun of itself yet still embraces it's the cliches from the past. The film is more self aware kind of like SCREAM making references to the usual horror movie staples like peeking your head out to check to see if the coast is clear (which always means you die) or at the end two teens see a "falling star" and say "Lets go check it out" which is the usual excuse characters in horror movies use to find themselves with major impalement issues. While you are watching a FRIDAY THE 13TH film, JASON X is made more like a science fiction film than a slasher flick. Take notice of the words on the screen at the beginning of the film filling us in on the setting of our story. The lettering is all computer text typing itself on the screen like a running program. That is something you would see in ALIEN. Pretty neat, huh? Oh, yea and there are space ships and outer space stuff also emphasising that this is a science fiction movie.

There are times when a character is about to die and then suddenly the troops show up and save the day. That is a little unusual for a FRIDAY film, don't ya think? You can see how the film plays with the "beats" of the slasher film. Certain times someone is suppose to die then suddenly they don't. I like that a lot. I like the part when a space marine guns Ol' Hockey Face down and impales him onto a hook then lifts him into the air and just for good measure shoots him in his undead legs. A character is behaving in a smart fashion and still gets killed because he doesn't understand what he is dealing with. That makes me think. What exactly is Jason? Is he a zombie or just just a really pissed off 500 year old virgin. I guess I would be pissed off too if the only way I could have sex with the ladies is to stab them in the face repeatedly with a large machete. Sucks to that!

My only real gripe about JASON X is the casting of the space marines. Instead of badass hard as nails men we get pretty young actors that try to act tough but come off as nothing more than horny teens with guns that look too big for them to handle. Seriously a couple of them look like freakin underwear models with attitude. Not very badass. But that isn't too much of a complaint. There is kind of a Jar-Jar Binks comedic relief character but honestly I found him to be pretty funny and they kill him off fairly soon as to not allow him to get annoying.

Its the high level of imagination that sets JASON X above all the rest of the FRIDAY films. It has a sense of instant classic. It is a colorful sharp looking film yet has a slight dingy low budget feel to it. It reminds me of Roger Corman movies like GALAXY OF TERROR or FORBIDDEN WORLD especially when Uber Cyborg Jason makes his appearance at the end. Just when you think the film couldn't get anymore badass he goes and gets an up grade. What a bastard. I do like seeing Jason get blasted to pieces by that nerdy girl android in the Matrix get up. Thanks JASON X. You just discovered a new fetish. Classic Monsters getting the crap kicked out of them by hot chicks. If I start a porn website that is what it is going to be about. What do you think?

Oh, and the best thing about JASON X is KANE HODDER IS PLAYING JASON! There is no one that can play him better and that's all I have to say about that.

Jason (X)

MURDER PARTY! Make this one a Halloween tradition along with FEEDING FRENZY.

2011-10-04T07:53:00.000-07:00

MURDER PARTY is a great example of how low budget horror can be far better than all the high end expensive big studio horror movies put together. This is a fantastic film. Its a comedy that is as clever as it is splattery. Most of the movie takes place in one large room in a warehouse with a bunch of people standing around and talking. Its kind of like RESERVOIR DOGS but with art students instead of gangsters. The film is never boring though. The characters are interesting and unique. They have your attention throughout the film and the writing is hilarious. MURDER PARTY is one of those films where you are not sure where it is going. This isn't the same kind of story that has been told a hundred times before. This is something new.

So the story goes as follows. Our hero Cardboard (that is not his name in the movie. I am calling him Cardboard because in the LARPING world if you make your costume out of cardboard the nerd-os will make fun of you and call you Cardboard. Watch DARKON for more information on LARPING.) finds a Halloween party invitation for anyone blowing in the wind. At first he doesn't want to go but his cat takes his seat in front of the t.v. and Cardboard is too much of a push over to kick the cat out. So Cardboard goes to the party dressed like a knight in shiny cardboard and duct tape. I got to tell you, if I had the creative skills I would go as Cardboard for Halloween this year. Its a great costume. I wonder if anyone would know who I was suppose to be. Anyhoo, soon as he arrives to the party he is captured by a group of art students who are going to kill him in the name of art. The movie then becomes kind of like the BREAKFAST CLUB in that these characters start to get to know one another until they push the wrong buttons on the wrong guy and all hell breaks loose.

I am not sure if younger audiences nowadays would find a movie like this entertaining. MURDER PARTY maybe a little too retro for the kiddies. Would they know what movies their costumes are from? I am concerned that intelligent comedies are lost on the generation that flocked to the screens to see VAMPIRES SUCK. Do kids even love Halloween anymore? This movie is a celebration of the holiday. The overall vibe I get from the film is that all these people in the film are friends and they are making a movie about the time of year they love most. This film is extremely fun to watch. It is as if you are friends with these people and you are there participating in what is happening. You get their jokes and fall in love with their eccentricities. You kind of root for everyone in the film even though they just kidnapped some poor bastard and are going to kill him to satisfy their egos.

MURDER PARTY is filmed well. The camera isn't distracting while capturing the dingy detail of the New York ghetto area. For a low budget there is nothing amateurish about it. These guys know what they are doing. I was really impressed with their use of blood too. There is a lot of it in this movie but it isn't overly used even when things turn into a bloodbath. The blood is effectively used to get the point across. There are of course some wonderful practical make-up effects too. The most talked about one is the melting werewolf mask on the guy's face gag. His mask catches fire and when it is finally put out the mask breaks apart but parts of it are melted to his face. It's awesome and perfectly executed. You can see the effort and love put into every aspect of this film. I really can't praise the film enough.

I mentioned FEEDING FRENZY in the title of this review because I think the best double feature to watch with your friends are these two movies back to back. You will have a fun night. These two films make you excited for horror movies again. They are well made and deliver on the goods. I am going to make it a tradition around here to get a bunch of peoples to come over and watch FEEDING FRENZY and MURDER PARTY. Think about it. Is there a better double feature pairing? I don't think so. Support these films. You won't be sorry unless you find TWILIGHT parodies hilarious. Then you are a dildo. Don't be a dildo. I learned that you don't want to be a dildo from watching MURDER PARTY.

Jason

WHAT IS TORTURE PORN? YO!

2011-10-03T10:41:00.000-07:00

I was reading a movie review of a "found footage" horror movie called UNDOCUMENTED. It was more of a positive review even though the writer didn't like much of what was happening in the film. He seemed to agree with the political agenda of the film more than the film itself. The movie sounded like a bunch of people getting tortured and that was the bulk of the horror. The writer went on to say that he doesn't like to call "torture porn" torture porn. He calls it "torture horror" because the idea isn't to sexually turn on the audience. I know the guy was trying to be smart and separate himself from the overly used term. In a way he is right. But in a more accurate way he is wrong. So yea, I am basically just going to give my opinion on what I define as torture porn. HAPPY HALLOWEEN TIME!

The word "porn" is a little misleading. We immediately think about sex because that is what happens in porn, right? But that is not what the word "porn" in "torture porn" is referring to. Think about what happens in an adult film in terms of story pacing. Keep in mind that I am not talking about porn that features two chicks, some douchey guy with stupid tattoos and a couch or sometimes when they are being creative with location a staircase. I am talking about story driven porn. You know, all those scenes you watch with the fast forward button firmly pressed until you get to the good stuff. What I am saying is that the story stops completely and the film focuses on a single act for a long period of time. The banging. The same thing happens in musicals. People are talking progressing the story until everything stops and they all start singing about one thing that is going on in the movie for five minutes or so. I wouldn't however suggest that we start calling it "torture musical" unless we were actually talking about THE GLEE or THE MOULON ROUGE.

Basically what happens in a torture porn is that the main character spends a great amount of the film's running time trapped in one location. Usually they are tied to a chair or table. (Now a lot of you folks out there might find the bondage aspect a big turn on. All I can say is good luck with all that.) The dialogue is reduced down to nothing more than crying and pleading. It gets irritating really fast. Then the film tries to out "extreme" all the other horror movies out there. I call this bad writing. It is the biggest thing wrong with horror nowadays. There really isn't a good story just a story concept. Example: Teenagers go into abandoned hospital to film low budget horror movie. Mad doctor kills them in the face with different medical instruments. THE END. There are no interesting characters and there is no story. There is just an excuse to get people murdered horribly in a creepy location. I get why horror directors at one time were considered one step above porn directors. Torture porn spends more time on the act of torture than telling a story. That is torture porn.

I blame THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE. Yea, I like that movie too but it seems to me that a good chunk of the horror community's horror education goes only back to that movie. Anything before that isn't extreme enough for them. They see horror as more gruesome than scary. I see too many films inspired by TCM. TCM starts off with a bunch of kids who run afoul a family of cannibals. The movie builds on the hot dry dingy atmosphere and delivers some shocking horrors BUT(!) then it descends at the end to nothing more than a girl tied to a chair pleading for her life. Thankfully she breaks free and escapes so the movie can end. THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE created the formula that a lot of film makers copy. I could name hundreds of films that are similar but you know them already.

Ironically I don't put the first SAW or the HOSTEL films in the torture porn category. Maybe I am being hypocritical or naive because there is big time torture in those films too. In fact the main horror is experiencing the torture. But neither film lingers too long on that aspect. In fact SAW stylishly(?) fast forwards through the extreme moments. To me those films had more going for them. They take place in more than one location, SAW had an interesting villain with elaborate contraptions of death similar to THE ABOMINABLE DR. PHIBES. HOSTEL was creative enough to have Takashi Miike make an appearance and both films have some neat visuals. SAW had the lumbering villain in the cloak who spoke through a creepy puppet for some reason. He wasn't trying to kill but to hand down life lessons. You can see a little more thought put into the film. Just in general I think there is more imagination in both film series. HOSTEL part 2 had two parallel story lines that come together at the end with a unique conclusion. Would any other American filmmaker end his film the way both HOSTEL films end?

A good porn director focuses on the build up to sex because that is the more interesting part. The audience's imagination and anticipation keeps them interested. A good horror director does the same. It is imagination that makes a horror movie good not just a bunch of gross out stuff. If you just went by gross stuff on screen then couldn't you consider FACES OF DEATH horror. I wouldn't. I would call it just a bunch of dead old people getting cut up on. Who wants to watch that? That should be called "autopsy porn" or something. By the way I used the word "porn" seventeen times in this essay. Oops! I mean eighteen.

HI, MOM!

Jason

JOHN CARPENTER'S THE WARD: It's Good! Too bad it takes place in THE WARD!

2011-10-02T09:31:00.000-07:00

John Carpenter's THE WARD is a return to true form for one of my favorite directors. The movie is really good. Even with the absence of the traditional John Carpenter keyboard music that he is second best known for THE WARD can't help but feel like a genuine piece from the master. The direction, the characters, the acting all perfect. After the wonky PRO-LIFE I was afraid we had lost our beloved director forever. Unlike other older directors (Romero, Lucas, Spielberg) who were great back in the day but now seem to have a hard time incorporating new technology with their film style, Carpenter manages to use the modern FX without his film looking artificial and all CGIy. The ghost in the film looks like a ghost and not a freakin cartoon. The movie looks like it takes place in the 1960s and not just a bunch of people dressed like they are from the 1960s standing in front of a green screen with digital 1960s backgrounds digitally inserted in the back. You would think that with all this praise that I would pardon the film's biggest flaw and go on with my "la-de-da" life but I can't. I just can't. After all these years of being a giant jerkola I can't bring myself to ignore my biggest complaint of the film which is..........?????

Out of all the places to set a horror movie why, oh, why does it have to take place in an insane asylum? First off there are a billion-million-gazillion horror movies that take place in asylums. None of them are good. At least John didn't call it THE ASYLUM. It is the most uncreative place to set your horror movie. Syringes, hospital beds, arm straps, electro therapy, doctors, nurses, flickering hallway lights, straitjackets pills and more pills are all common things you see in these films. And all of them are cliched and boring. Watching these films are about as thrilling as actually sitting in a hospital waiting room with no WEEKLY READER to pass the time with. Those images don't scare anymore. They leave no impact. How many times do we need to see red blood splattered across white walls or sheets? So clever.

What kind of story happens in a horror movie that takes place in a psyche ward? Basically there are two kinds. One is that the threat is real. The second is that everything that is happening is only happening in the main character's head and we don't find out until the end with a bunch of psychological mumbo jumbo bull hockey. Those of us who watch a lot of horror movies know this and we can see the ending coming from a mile away giving us little surprise. One simple sentence nonchalantly uttered from a secondary character is all that is needed to reveal too early the twist. THE WARD is no different but I will say this. At least THE WARD doesn't draw the twist ending in crayon for all to see during the opening credits of the gosh darn movie! *cough-IDENTITY-cough*

You can tell that Carpenter put some time and thought in to making THE WARD. There really isn't anything in the film to complain about. He is back and I can't wait for his next movie. My problem is the familiarity with everything I was seeing. I got the weird "I'm watching SUCKER PUNCH again" vibe. That's an awful feeling, folks. One that I never want to feel again. Maybe if SUCKER PUNCH hadn't metaphorically kicked me in my metaphoric balls I would have enjoyed THE WARD more. Who knows? And, yes, ladies I have real balls to go along with my metaphoric balls too.

Jason